


Simmer Down and Pucker Up

by AndreyaHalms



Category: Naruto
Genre: Accidental Honeypots, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, BAMF Uchiha Sasuke, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Bickering, Disaster Gay Uzumaki Naruto, Genre-Typical Violence, Humor, M/M, Office Form Filling, Sasuke's A+ Decision-Making Skills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25491769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreyaHalms/pseuds/AndreyaHalms
Summary: “Look. If you’re good, I’ll take you to see whales after we’re done.”Naruto narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Is this a dick joke? Because it sounds like one.”“Blue whales migrate to this part of the world between November and April,” Sasuke says primly. “We’re bang in the middle of whale-watching season.”Or, someone decides it's a great idea to assign Agent Uzumaki the world's biggest bastard as a partner.
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 43
Kudos: 224





	1. Sucker Punch

**Author's Note:**

> Just some self-indulgent ridiculousness. Title from Arctic Monkeys.

Naruto meets Sasuke for the first time, ironically enough, on a nice spring morning. 

The morning is picture-perfect. The sun shines benevolently on them, birds chirp tunefully, and a playful breeze ruffles through hair.

“Good morning, children!” Commander Hatake exclaims out of nowhere, and Naruto nearly jumps out of his skin. Sakura screeches as their tower of cards tumbles over, Sai smiles as creepily as ever, and Kiba whoops in victory.

“Sir!” They chorus, collecting themselves and snapping to attention.

“At ease, agents,” Kakashi says, waving his hand lazily. “Agent Uzumaki, allow me to introduce you to the new partner I told you about earlier. This is Sasuke Uchiha, codename Sharingan.”

Naruto looks at the tall, black-haired, blank-faced man next to Kakashi. He looks like he’s in his late twenties or early thirties, putting him in the same age group as Naruto.

Beside him, Sakura gives an appreciative hum because she’s libidinous like that.

“Hi,” Naruto says and extends his arm with a grin. “Naruto Uzumaki. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Sasuke looks down at Naruto’s offered hand and back at his face. His shapely eyebrows furrow in a slight frown, as if Naruto is the one who’s weird for being friendly with the person who will be responsible for his life during missions.

“Don’t get in my way,” Sasuke grunts like an asshole.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Naruto says, blood beginning to boil, and Kakashi very conveniently disappears.

* * *

“Please,” Naruto begs on his knees, bowed so low that his forehead is touching the floor. “Please, please, please. Kakashi, _please._ ”

“I’m sorry, Naruto.”

“I’m begging you. Please, I can’t work with Sasuke.”

“I assure you, Agent Uchiha’s skills perfectly complement yours.”

“But he lacks basic humanity!”

“We’re all assassins here.”

“Yeah, but he’s a rude dickhead!”

Kakashi makes a strained sound through his mask that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “Not my problem. You are, however, free to lodge a formal complaint with the Director if you’d like.”

“The Dir-- But that will stick to him for his entire career!”

“Not my problem. Now get out of my bedroom before I throw you out of the window.”

“Yes sir!” Naruto says and beats a hasty retreat through the air vent from where he’d come.

* * *

Director Senju lifts an eyebrow at the folder on her desk. “What’s this?”

Naruto keeps his eyes trained on the clock behind her. “Form 48T. Formal complaint against a teammate for wilfully endangering one’s health.”

“You look fine to me.”

“It’s my mental health, ma’am. I’m under great emotional stress.”

Tsunade picks up the folder and slowly flips through the form. Then she presses the button for the PA system on her desk and says, “Agent Uchiha to my office. Now.”

Naruto counts 30 seconds before there’s a knock on the door and Sasuke lets himself in, irritatingly blank-faced as usual.

Tsunade steeples her fingers. “Agent Uchiha. You have been with us for barely a week, and you have already demonstrated your ability to work in a team.”

Naruto’s heart soars. Finally! He should have gone to his godmother directly instead of wasting time with that white-haired, good-for-nothing--

“Congratulations, Sasuke,” Tsunade says warmly. “I should have never doubted Kakashi’s judgement.”

 _"WHAT?!_ ” Naruto yells.

Tsunade ignores him. “Agent Uzumaki’s paperwork is legendary throughout Leaf for its migraine-inducing powers. You, however, have managed to make him submit not only the correct form for his grievances, but more importantly, the correctly filled form. There are no grammatical errors, the language is crisp and even the right supporting documents are attached. Good job.”

“Thank you,” Sasuke says, not at all looking affected by the fact that someone had apparently filed a formal complaint against him.

“But,” Naruto contends, “What about _me?”_

“What about you?” Tsunade asks and pulls out a lighter.

Naruto watches mournfully as she lights the fruits of his hard labour on fire.

* * *

The thing is, as Naruto realises the day after the Form 48T debacle, Sasuke’s brusque arrogance is not completely unfounded.

“Who Is This _G_ _od_ ,” Lee breathes, eyes sparkling. In the training area in front of them, Neji lands on his ass, for the second time in a row.

“Naruto’s new partner,” Sakura says helpfully.

“Wow, really?” Lee turns his shining eyes on Naruto. “That’s amazing! I’m so jealous.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Naruto mutters under his breath, going through his warm-up stretches. “You can have him.”

“Enough!” Their combat master, Gai calls out from his wheelchair. Sasuke and Neji disengage, with the latter looking positively murderous. “Neji, to Lee for feedback. Hokage, you’re up next.”

“Go get ‘im,” Sakura says cheerfully, and slaps Naruto’s ass. Naruto winks at her and pulls off his tank top before leaping over the boundary ropes and towards where Sasuke is waiting.

The two men circle each other, waiting for the opponent to make the first move. Eventually, Naruto gets bored of the bastard’s stalling and strikes out.

Sasuke’s fast, blurring out of range before his fist can connect. He’s on the defensive for the first couple of seconds, either deflecting Naruto’s fists and legs completely, or redirecting them so that the blows aren’t as painful as they _could_ have been. His eyes, though, unnervingly track every fluid motion of Naruto’s Capoeira-inspired style.

“Fight me, you coward,” Naruto says through bared teeth.

“Don’t go crying to the Director when I kick your ass, then,” Sasuke says, shifts his weight and leaps forward.

Looking at Sasuke fight had been one thing, actually meeting him on offense in the ring is another. Naruto holds back; personal opinions aside, this spar is more about training rather than beating the shit out of each other. 

Sasuke, however, goads him, his lightning-fast snake strike combos becoming more and more vicious to draw Naruto out from his shell of self-restraint.

(Who is he kidding, this spar is totally about beating the shit out of each other.)

However, each blow, whether awarded or received, settles Naruto deeper and deeper into meditative, almost trance-like battle calm. The background and the audience they’ve managed to draw fades, and all that exists is his body, the blood and adrenaline that maps every fibre of every muscle, and the soul and unyielding heart of his opponent.

His opponent, who is--

Who is actually _smiling_.

 _Ah,_ Naruto realizes, and when he grins, he tastes blood in his mouth.

* * *

Their first mission together in Kyiv goes through without a hitch.

They take out a drug ring, set up mechanisms to ensure that a power vacuum doesn’t develop and even stumble across a tiny hole-in-the-wall place that makes an excellent holodets, a dish that's apparently made of boiled pig feet.

Sasuke makes superior faces and when he speaks, has nothing nice to say about Naruto’s food choices (or anything non-mission related in general), but he does share his last cigarettes with the blond.

The guy’s a grumpy asshole, but as he blows smoke rings into the night, Naruto starts to think that maybe there’s some sense to their weird partnership after all.

* * *

Their second mission is similarly successful, as is their third and fourth.

The fifth one goes a bit tits up as it involves a madman who tries to harvest all of Naruto’s blood for obvious reasons, nothing new, but apart from the avoidable and humiliating hiccup of having to be rescued by an extremely furious, extremely smug Sasuke, it goes as good as these things ever can.

Each mission ends with their now-established ritual of strange local cuisine and cigarettes.

* * *

“How’s it going?” Sakura asks him over their monthly night out, back in Tokyo. It’s been a while since Naruto has been free to attend one of these gatherings and he’d really missed getting shitfaced with his friends.

(Hinata had sent everybody in their circle the invitation this time, including their newest recruit. Sasuke had replied back with a terse _No_.)

“A bit busy, but good overall.”

Ino worms in between then. “What Forehead here means is, how’s it going working with tall, emo and handsome?”

Neji chokes and his vodka martini comes out of his nose. He tries to regain his dignity by wiping his face daintily. “ _Handsome?_ ”

“Well, he is quite aesthetically gifted,” Hinata says. “A bit rude, yes, but I suppose that adds to the overall charm.”

“Hinata,” Neji moans. “Not you too.”

“He may not be my type, cousin, but I’m not blind.”

“He’s totally my type,” Sakura, Ino, Kiba and, surprisingly, Sai say at the same time, and high five each other. Some drinks are sloshed.

“Ew,” Naruto says. “I just imagined all of you together. Yuck.”

“Come on, dude,” Ino insists. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

Naruto casts his mind back to Sasuke and realises that sure, maybe the other man did have a stupidly symmetrical face, but it wasn’t anything _special_. He’s seen better. “Dunno. Maybe I just have different tastes.”

“So,” Sakura asks. “How’s he like to work with?”

“Gai-sensei said he had perfect scores in his eval,” Lee interjects. “Apparently he set some new records too.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tenten looks up from her conversation with Chouji. “I saw him at the dojo the other day. That man _knows_ how to handle a sword.”

“I would love him to handle my sword,” Kiba says dreamily.

“Kiba!” Neji squawks. “Can we all please stop objectifying Uchiha behind his back? Please? It’s extremely inappropriate and highly sexist.”

“I agree,” Naruto says. “Frankly, I’m more impressed by his skills than his looks. Sure, he doesn’t know how to talk to people and acts like he’s got a stick up his ass, but he’s a damn good agent. He’s scary efficient, really smart, and once you get to know him, you realise that he actually _cares_ about you in his own weirdly constipated way. No offense to you guys, but I’d rather not trust anyone else with my back than Sasuke. We work really well together. I couldn’t have asked for a more reliable teammate, y’know?”

His declaration is met with silence. Sakura is the first one to recover. “Didn’t you try to get him court martialled a few months back?”

“I’ve grown since then.”

Sakura giggles. “Figures. Only you can find something positive in everybody. Remember that guy from Saudi? Gaara?”

“Oh, yeah!” Lee pipes up. “What’s he up to these days?”

“He quit Sand. Spends his time designing gardens for the rich in Dubai, apparently.”

“Quite a youthful vocation indeed.”

“Wait,” Naruto realizes with dawning horror, “I never apologised to Sasuke for Form 48T!”

“I doubt he really cares about such trivial things,” Shikamaru says, his voice lazily drifting on the back of his cigarette smoke. 

Everybody leans forward, ears pricked. Shikamaru never speaks much in these gatherings, but whenever he does, he blesses them with extremely meaty pieces of gossip.

And as usual, Shikamaru doesn’t disappoint. “Leaf records list Kakashi Hatake as his next of kin. His father, to be precise.”

* * *

So, yeah.

Turns out Naruto’s rude, brooding, but still awkwardly nice partner may or may not be the Commander’s illegitimate son with an enemy spy whom he had had a whirlwind but ultimately doomed romance with.

He’d tried to get his Commander’s _son_ court martialled.

Atleast this information tells them two things:

One, Sasuke’s apparently handsome face narrows down the possibilities of what Kakashi looks like under that mask of his.

And two, Kakashi's grey hair is probably natural and not, as is widely believed, some sort of a misplaced fashion statement.

* * *

Winter comes and brings with it a flurry of ice and snow. Luckily for Naruto, they ship out to Sri Lanka mid-November, where it’s perpetually nice and sunny.

They’re lying on a roof opposite their target’s apartment in Kandy. It’s a simple surveillance mission, which means Naruto’s bored out of his fucking mind on top of sweating his balls out.

He slants a look at Sasuke, who’s observing their target through a pair of binoculars. He looks as unbothered as ever, even though he’d been developing a nasty red patch on his nose when Naruto had last seen said nose.

“I think you need a haircut,” Naruto says, eyeing the long sweat-greased bangs framing Sasuke’s face.

“I think you need to suck my dick.”

“That the best line you got?”

Sasuke looks away from Jayasinghe and meets Naruto’s eyes. “For you? Yes.”

Naruto grins. “Very direct. I like it,” he pauses for a second, and then says, “So, uh, Kakashi, huh?”

Sasuke stills minutely and goes back to creeping on their target. “Yeah.”

“Cool,” Naruto says. “What’s Jayasinghe doing?”

“Sleeping.”

They relapse into silence and Naruto tries to entertain himself by looking at their sleeping target. It doesn’t work out very well, so he drums his fingers and hums a tune under his breath. Sweat crawls down the valley of his spine like a line of marching ants. Then he realises that there’s a small pebble of some sort under his chest so he starts wriggling, trying to get it out.

“Can you _stop_ fidgeting?” Sasuke eventually snaps.

“It’s so fucking boring, dude. I’m literally dying.”

“Look. If you’re good, I’ll take you to see whales after we’re done.”

Naruto narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Is this a dick joke? Because it sounds like one.”

“Blue whales migrate to this part of the world between November and April in search of warmer currents and krill,” Sasuke says primly. “We’re bang in the middle of whale-watching season.”

“Sweet,” Naruto says. “But dinner and a smoke first.”

“Of course.”

* * *

Naruto doesn’t know what triggers it. 

Maybe it was the fact that most of his friends, at some level, wanted to bang Sasuke. Even Neji, although that’s more of a hatesex/powerplay sort of situation.

Or maybe, it was the fact that Sasuke had said _“I think you need to suck my dick”_ before taking him to a really nice restaurant with orgasm-inducing food, and then hanging out with him in the Indian Ocean for three days till they caught an awe-inspiring glimpse of the largest mammal on Earth.

Naruto doesn’t know what _really_ triggers it, but the fact is this: he pops a boner when he passes an obnoxiously naked Sasuke in the communal showers of the Leaf barracks one day.

He’s saved from utter humiliation and a possible harassment charge (Form 48F, he remembers from his research) only because Sasuke has already walked past him by then and there’s nobody else in the area as he frantically powerwalks into the nearest shower stall.

“Oh come on,” he groans, turning on the water in the coldest setting and glaring at his still-happy penis. “Seriously?”

* * *

Unfortunately, it’s not a one time thing.

Naruto catches himself doing weird things, like admiring the lines of Sasuke’s body as he spars and appreciating the dexterity of his fingers as he expertly disassembles, services and reassembles his gun. 

And sometimes, when he comes while masturbating to his usual porn, it’s the image of Sasuke, naked and damp and smirking that pops out of nowhere and sticks behind his eyelids and refuses to leave. It blows his mind every time, but also makes him hate himself once the post-orgasmic glow fades.

Because it’s okay for the others to have these sorts of thoughts about Sasuke. They don't know him. For them, it’s like having a celebrity crush, impersonal and exaggerated. An obsession with the unknown. A fantasy.

But Sasuke is Naruto’s _friend._ And it’s inherently wrong and plain disrespectful to objectify and want to fuck (or be fucked by) your unwilling and unwitting friend so hard that the bed breaks.

* * *

Sasuke’s bangs get singed on one side during a mission that requires them to unleash their latent pyromaniac tendencies, so he asks Naruto to even out his hair before they return to Leaf HQ.

Naruto runs his fingers through Sasuke’s stupidly nice hair and gets so nervous that he almost stabs the other man in the neck with his scissors.

* * *

"Something wrong?"

"No, why?"

"Your face is a little red.”

“Oh, um, yeah. Allergies, haha.”

“Don’t let it sabotage the mission. Here, I have antihistamines.”

* * *

“Can you do me?”

“W-What?!”

“My _suit_ , moron. Strained my shoulder. Can’t unzip the back.”

“I knew that, bastard!”

* * *

It all goes to hell in Tahiti, the tenth mission they run together.

(It's also a little past their first anniversary of having met each other.)

“You idiot!” Naruto yells, dragging Sasuke into the bathtub of the safe house. He almost rips the door of the bathroom cabinet out in his haste to reach the first aid kit. “Why would you do that?”

“Didn’t wanna drag your injured ass back,” Sasuke says through bloodless lips, attempting to somehow simultaneously apply pressure to the four different bullet wounds in his gut.

“So you made _me_ drag _your_ injured ass back? How the hell does that make sense?” Naruto removes Sasuke’s body armour and cuts through his clothing before snapping on a pair of sterile gloves. He disinfects the forceps with the antiseptic solution and starts rooting around for the bullet on the left of Sasuke’s navel.

“Y’were too slow.”

“Don’t ever do that again,” Naruto says, pulling out the first bullet. He disinfects once again and seals the wound shut with skin glue. He blames himself. All this wouldn’t have happened if Naruto had told Sasuke of his abilities. “Listen, Sasuke. I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but-- I can survive these things, okay? I can’t tell you how, but I can, okay? You took an unnecessary risk. Don’t ever--”

“I know ‘bout Project Jinchuuriki, dumbass.”

“If you knew,” Naruto says, hands steady even though he’s finding it difficult to control his temper and panic. “Then why the _fuck_ would you still--”

“The fuck should I know,” Sasuke slurs, head slipping and eyes glassy. “Body moved on its own. ‘Sides, ‘m one of Orochimaru’s. I killed ‘im. Can handle a little pain.”

“One of Orochimaru’s kids, huh? That explains a lot. Especially why they partnered you with me. Hey--” Naruto looks up sharply when Sasuke doesn’t respond. “Sasuke. Sasuke. _Sharingan_. Stay with me, you hear?”

“‘M alive,” Sasuke mumbles.

“Good,” Naruto says and extracts the last bullet and glues the wound. He’s sure there is more blood outside his partner’s body than inside at this point. He can’t do more than this, only sit and pray and keep Sasuke talking so that he doesn’t fall asleep and _die_ before their extraction arrives. “Keep it that way and I’ll even suck your dick, okay?”

Sasuke coughs weakly. “God, I fuckin’ hate you.”

“It’ll be a bit hard to hate me if you die, yeah?”

“Come back...haunt you.”

“Ghosts linger on only if they have regrets. You implying you’d regret dying, huh, Sharingan?”

“Yeah…” Sasuke murmurs, fading out as the comm in Naruto’s ear crackles into activity. The sound of the helicopter landing on the roof makes it difficult to hear what he says next. “There’s someone...I must...find...”

It's the only mission where they don't grab a bite after they're done.

* * *

The doctors put Sasuke in a room in the hospital wing in a medically induced coma for three weeks. He’s not allowed any visitors, but that doesn’t stop Naruto from hovering outside his door, sick with worry.

Because Sasuke had technically _died_ in the chopper back from Tahiti to Auckland before they managed to revive him. His heart had stopped for a whole fifty seconds, and it had all been Naruto's fault, and he had gone a bit off the rails for those fifty seconds.

(“It’s not your fault,” his therapist tells him. “Convincing yourself it is would mean taking away Sasuke’s agency of free will.”

“But it _is_ my fault,” Naruto insists, trying to make her understand. “Those bullets had my name on them. If I had been more aware, I would have reacted in time.”

“Even you can’t be perfect, Naruto.”

“But I’m supposed to be. That’s why they created me in the first place, doctor. What good is my existence if I can’t protect my friend?”)

People come to visit Naruto as he keeps vigil. Hinata brings him coffee and general kindness, while Choji brings him lunch. Tenten distracts him with the first sketch of a new plasma gun she’s thinking of pitching to R&D. The others aren’t there, but if they had been, they’d have dropped by too.

The only person who visits Sasuke is Kakashi, only once, towards the beginning.

(“He’ll be fine,” Kakashi had said in his usual blasé manner. “He’s as stubborn as you when it comes to these things.”)

* * *

Naruto gets called away to New York for a joint training exercise with Cloud’s Killer B, an old friend and the eighth successful outcome of Project Jinchuuriki. By the time he’s back in Japan, ears ringing with B’s sick rhymes, Sasuke is already discharged.

Naruto goes to seek him out at his quarters and suddenly realises that for all their year’s worth of teamwork in the field, they never really interact at all outside of training or mission-related activities.

Sasuke’s on the pastier side, with bags under his eyes, but otherwise has a significantly less number of holes on his person than the last time. He opens his door in his pyjamas and looks downright pissed when he sees who his visitor is.

“You moron,” he hisses. “What did you do?”

“What?” Naruto exclaims, genuinely confused.

“I’ve been put on _suicide watch_. For a month.”

“I didn’t do anything! Maybe don’t go around jumping in front of bullets the next time?”

Sasuke stares at Naruto and then pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes closing as if he’s in actual physical pain. “Fucking Kakashi,” he sighs and steps aside. “Come in.”

Sasuke’s room is as large as his own with the same layout, but that’s where the similarities end. It’s utilitarian, with company-issued furniture and sharply tucked in bedsheets and the single pillow. The only thing giving it some life is the one book on herpetology.

It’s actually quite on-brand.

Now that Naruto’s finally here, he doesn’t know what to say. _I thought I had lost you and I couldn’t handle it because I want you watching my back forever_ is too personal. _What’s up_ is not personal enough.

Sasuke’s looking at him expectantly, if also a little impatiently. He opens his mouth to say something, presumably to ask Naruto to stop wasting his time and leave.

So Naruto beats him to the punch, blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind--

“Guess I need to suck your dick now, huh?”

\--and immediately starts kicking his stupid brain.

“What,” Sasuke says flatly.

But, in for a penny, in for a pound, and all that.

“Well, I did promise!”

“When.”

“I don’t know! You were bleeding everywhere and I was just trying to keep you engaged so that you wouldn’t pass out and die!”

“By promising me sexual favours.”

“ _Y_ _es!_ ” Naruto screeches. “You even responded to me!”

“Hm. Can’t recall.”

“Well, obviously!” Naruto wails, tugging at his hair. “You were pretty out of it. I’m so sorry! I’m the worst! I only came here to see how you were doing. You probably don’t even _like_ men. Or women. Or anyone. I don’t know. What I know is that this is extremely inappropriate and you can report me for harassment if you want to. I’ll help you fill the form - it’s 48F, by the way. I won’t even defend myself, I’ll take whatever punishment they’ll give me, I-- hey.” He pauses and squints suspiciously at Sasuke’s quivering shoulders. “Are you _laughing_ at me?”

Sasuke straightens and does something strange with his face. “No.”

Yep, that’s definitely a suppressed laugh. Or he’s having a stroke, which would make more sense, considering he’d had been an invalid until very recently.

“Shit, are you having a stroke?” Naruto asks, worried.

Sasuke throws his head back and flat out laughs, a short carefree _hahaha_ , and Naruto freezes. He’d never thought that his surly partner had been capable of outward expressions of positivity, and that-- that changes things.

More specifically, it brings things up from his penis to his fluttering stomach to somewhere around the general vicinity of his _heart_.

Naruto resumes mentally kicking himself.

“Relax, idiot,” Sasuke says, the insult wrapped in a small smile. “No, I’m not having a stroke. And I’m not going to file you for harassment.”

“You’re not?”

Sasuke shrugs. “I’m...aware of the effect I have on some people.”

“Aaaand you’re back to being an asshole.”

“I watch people,” Sasuke counters drily. “Your friends aren’t exactly subtle.” 

Naruto winces and scratches his head sheepishly. “Yeah, don’t take them too seriously. Nobody really _means_ it. It’s just a joke, y’know?”

Sasuke steps closer, selfishly stealing all the oxygen from the air. “Is it, now?” He’s still smiling, that bastard.

Naruto takes a reflexive step backwards and gulps when his back hits the closed door. “Yep.”

“Are you sure?” Sasuke’s smile widens fractionally and it makes him look a good ten years younger and twenty times prettier, pasty skin and undereye bags and all. It's horribly unfair. “I watch people. I watch you.”

If Sasuke’s heart stopping for fifty seconds had been bad, this is worse. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.”

Naruto’s ears burn. His face burns. His entire body burns. He shouldn’t have come to Sasuke’s scarily clean room, he shouldn’t have opened his stupid mouth. “Nope, not a clue.”

“Naruto,” Sasuke says, and he sounds...not inconvenienced? Fond. He sounds fond. Affectionate, even. He casually places his arm on the wall beside Naruto’s head, trapping him, and leans in. This close, Naruto can smell his nice aftershave. “Listen to me very, very carefully. I don’t mind inappropriate comments. Not if it’s you.”

The metaphorical penny drops.

“You’re trying to seduce me!” Naruto accuses. Tries to accuse. It comes out more as a strangled whisper.

“Hm?” Sasuke’s smile sharpens into a smirk. “Just trying?”

“Succeeding,” Naruto amends. His lips are really dry, so he licks them. Sasuke’s eyes flick down briefly to track the movement of his tongue.

“To be fair, you started it.”

“But you’re my friend!”

“And?”

“And--and you _died_.”

Sasuke’s expression softens minutely. “I’m sorry.”

“And I’m also really turned on right now,” Naruto admits hoarsely, and nearly jumps out of his skin when Sasuke takes it as an invitation to plaster himself to Naruto, knee to chest.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispers, lips brushing Naruto’s ear. “And then I want your cock down my throat.”

Naruto has three different things to say to that _(oh God_ **_yes_ ** , _are you even medically cleared for this sort of physical activity_ and _what the fuck are you waiting for then, you asshole)_ which jumble together and come out simultaneously from his mouth as a pathetically strained whimper.

Sasuke laughs against him and when they finally kiss, Naruto, the emotional fool that he is, falls a little bit in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated!


	2. Escape Velocity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out that Tahiti had been nothing compared to the clusterfuck that is Operation Red Dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke almost dies trying to (unecessarily) save Naruto. Naruto's attempt at checking up on him goes disastrously. Off-screen sexy times happen bc I can't write smut. Chapter 2 follows up from there.
> 
> Thanks everybody who's read it and for your lovely kudos and comments in the last chapter! Really made my week!

“So,” Naruto says around a mouthful of toothpaste foam. He had been perfectly content to remain sprawled bonelessly on Sasuke’s bed, but the other man had fastidiously dragged him to the communal bathroom so that they could brush their mouths together. “Is this going to be a regular thing now?”

“It can be whatever you want it to be,” Sasuke replies easily, scrubbing his face. He inspects the marks Naruto had left on his neck in the mirror before adjusting his collar so that they’re covered.

“Cool,” Naruto says and rinses his mouth. He hands Sasuke back the spare toothbrush he had given him. “Well. Guess I’ll see you around?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sasuke says wryly. “Suicide watch, remember?”

* * *

_It's a regular thing_ , Naruto moans despondently to himself when he unlocks his room to find Sasuke casually lounging on Naruto’s quirky frog-patterned bedsheets.

It’s the third time that week.

“How did you get in?” Naruto asks, like the last two times.

“Find out yourself,” Sasuke replies, like the last two times.

“What kind of shitty booty call is this,” Naruto grouches, kicking the door shut behind him. “You could have at least undressed in advance.”

“Please,” Sasuke sniffs haughtily. “I have some dignity.”

* * *

It’s a regular thing in the sense that it’s regular. Naruto isn’t very sure about the “thing” part.

Is it a friends-with-benefits thing? A relationship thing, perhaps? Or maybe an I’m-grateful-you’re-not-dead thing?

It’s not like Naruto’s not had relationships in the past. He's sweet, he's attentive, and is blessed with good genes in the physical appearance department. He's also somewhat of a sucker when it comes pleasing people and has always maintained a healthy love for mutual orgasms.

Although it _was_ true that he had to slowly start foregoing romantic entanglements with civilians due to the secretive and risky nature of his job, it's not something he finds himself particularly missing. And brief crushes aside, he had also never felt the need to actively pursue any of his colleagues.

Except for the strange sex-bickering thing he has suddenly got going on with Sasuke now.

There’s also the fact that, as days pass, he gets increasingly terrified to ask the man his opinion on it again, but Naruto supposes that’s the beauty of it all.

It’s whatever they want it to be. It can be something. It can be nothing.

Sasuke's probably too cool to conform to labels, anyway.

(No really. He's _so_ cool.)

* * *

June rolls in and brings with it the last week of Sasuke’s watch period. Gai requests him for a day’s help with the new Level 4 recruits before he gets assigned back on the field.

Sasuke agrees because he believes doing Leaf's equivalent of community service is going to signal the fact that he’s not going to recklessly kill himself if allowed back on duty.

Naruto goes watch because he’s got nothing better to do. He runs into the Hyuuga cousins on the observation deck, who are also there on the lookout for potential members of their super elite snipers' club.

There are eight new recruits this year, bright eyed and bushy tailed and determined to prove themselves. They’re arranged into two rows of four. Sasuke blandly stands in front of them for a good fifteen minutes with his arms crossed, without saying or doing anything.

From above, Naruto can spot the ones that are eager to learn, and the ones that will...need to have their attitudes adjusted. He's sure Sasuke's cataloging the same.

"You lot are nothing," Sasuke says finally. "You don't have any special skills. You're not geniuses." He starts slowly pacing in front of them. “Most of you think you’re real hot shit simply because you passed some tests and made it here. You are not.”

“Are the dramatics really necessary,” Neji mutters, but he’s looking at Sasuke with a particularly interested glint in his eye.

“Shush, the man has his methods,” Hinata says. She has her pale eyes trained on a specific recruit.

Below them, Sasuke continues. “Only two of you are aware of exactly how subpar you are. Fortunately, it means that only two of you will have somewhat of a chance of surviving past your first three missions.” He stops abruptly and looks at one of the recruits, the brown-haired boy Hinata’s observing. “You.”

“Sir!”

“What’s the most important thing for you to remember out in the field?”

“My country, sir!”

Sasuke’s lips curl up in an ugly sneer. "Patriotism is an opinion, not a fact. Anyone else?”

“Um, world peace? Sir.”

Sasuke levels a look at the girl who had spoken. She gulps.

“Your _partner,_ ladies and gentlemen. Your team. That’s the most important thing in the field, and if you’re lucky, even out of it. Not the rules. Not the laws. And certainly not abstract, nebulous concepts like patriotism and world peace that depend on which history book you're reading. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, I’m going to call someone for the next part.” Sasuke raises his voice. “Hokage, if you’d please.”

Naruto blinks at this.

“I wasn’t aware you were a part of Uchiha’s theatrics,” Neji says distastefully.

“Neither was I,” Naruto replies. He briefly considers which route to take, decides on the fastest one and leaps over the railings of the observation deck.

(He’s always been something of an attention whore, anyway. His therapist blames it on him having been left alone and unwanted for a major part of his developmental years.)

He drops four storeys down to land beside Sasuke in a neat crouch, who doesn’t even flinch. He’d probably planned it that way, the bastard.

“‘Sup, partner,” Naruto says, springing up and slapping an enthusiastic arm around Sasuke’s shoulders. He turns to beam at the newbies. “Welcome to the big leagues, guys. Liven up! You should be proud of fulfilling your dreams and making it here. I know I was.”

The force of his grin makes some of them smile tentatively at him, while others look like they need more time to get over their respective emotional whiplashes. 

Naruto also hears some furious whispers from the back ( _How the hell is this his partner; I can’t believe it’s_ **_the_ ** _Hokage; I was told he had fangs for teeth and claws for hands; I heard he’d lost his right arm once and it actually grew back_ ) and his grin widens. The rumours get more and more outlandish each year.

“If you’re done gossiping,” Sasuke says acerbically and the whispers immediately stall. He takes out six bells attached to ribbons from his pockets and-- oh.

Naruto practically squirms in excitement.

Sasuke holds the bells up high. “There are eight of you and six of these bells. Hokage and I will take three each. Your objective is to divest us of these bells by midnight, giving you sixteen hours. Everything is fair play, as long as it is within Leaf campus. If there is collateral damage, you will be responsible for it. Whoever ends the day with at least one bell in their possession wins.”

“Good luck!” Naruto says cheerfully and as he accepts the bells from Sasuke, the room plunges into darkness.

They’re both nowhere to be seen when the lights turn back on.

* * *

“Oh man,” Naruto says hours later. There’s mud in his ear and Sasuke is missing his shoes. “That was fun. Thanks for making me a part of this."

“Don’t mention it,” Sasuke grunts, and even though they’re both covered in ink, he looks a little pleased too.

* * *

The last day of Sasuke’s imprisonment (his words, not Naruto’s) coincides with another one of Naruto’s friends' monthly night outs.

Lee chooses the pub this time and as usual, an invitation is extended to Sasuke, who replies back with a _Have prior commitments_ , which is a whole three times longer than any of his previous replies.

Emboldened by this, Sakura and Kiba (and Ino, over the phone) wheedle Naruto into forcing Sasuke into joining them.

“Come _on,_ Naruto,” the harpies he calls friends tell him. “He’s obsessed with you. He’ll listen to you if you ask him to.”

“I know why they want to invite me,” Sasuke tells him coldly. “You should know by now that I’m not particularly interested in getting leered at by strange people.”

“Well,” Sasuke amends after a pause, thoughtfully staring into the distance. He would have stroked his perfect chin had he been the type. “Strange people who aren’t you, anyway.”

Naruto tries not to blush too much.

* * *

When they're finally, finally allowed back together on the field, the one thing that Naruto is really worried about is his own objectivity, especially during life-and-death situations, in the light of the recent developments between him and Sasuke. Sasuke is probably insufferably great at compartmentalising these things, but Naruto still has sweaty, vivid nightmares about the other man bleeding to death sometimes.

He soon realises that he needn’t have worried. If anything, his focus is better than ever because he gets laid regularly and post-mission sex between two extremely fit, adrenaline-charged men is just _wow_.

He also learns that under the right circumstances, his refractory period can be really, really short.

(Sasuke looks equal parts impressed and triumphant at that.)

* * *

"Hey," Naruto says, wading through the piranha-infested waters of the Amazon. Sasuke had told him that _infested_ was too strong of a descriptor for a species that eats plants more than it eats meat, but doesn't hurt to be safe. "Tell me about Orochimaru."

Sasuke doesn't look up from the screen showing the feed from the cameras Naruto had just set up across the river. "Why?"

Naruto warily eyes a water snake ribboning past him. "Just in the mood for a story."

Sasuke hauls him out of the water and tells him about a non-specified accident that had left him with considerable brain damage, and the lengths he had gone to fix himself.

After the arms traffickers are taken out, Naruto catches a piranha and they smoke it over an open fire under the swollen Bolivian skies. 

Through experimental bites of the particularly strong-tasting fish meat, Naruto tells Sasuke about the unwanted orphan from the streets who offered up his body and mind and agreed to become a weapon in exchange for a home.

The clouds overhead burst in a heavy sheet of rain that makes their tent cave in. Everything is cold and wet and gross, but Naruto grabs Sasuke's forearm and laughs as they sprint for cover under the closest convenient tree.

* * *

And the best part? The best part about the whole thing is that boring stakeout missions are slightly less boring because he now has the added option of keeping himself entertained by periodically groping Sasuke’s rather nice ass.

The first time he does it, Sasuke obviously takes it as a challenge and immediately says, “If you keep watch, I’ll suck your cock while you’re doing it.”

“Isn’t that dereliction of duty?” Naruto asks dubiously.

Sasuke smirks. “Only if you get distracted.”

“Oh, you’re _on,_ ” Naruto cackles, and regrets his life choices fifteen minutes later when he drops his binoculars at the sight of his partner nuzzling his half-hard dick with his eyes half-closed, spit and come glossing his lips.

* * *

So, yeah. It doesn’t matter what the _thing_ between them is.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re both alive and well and with Sasuke by his side, Naruto feels like he’s both the immovable object and the unstoppable force at once. Fuck that, he feels like that point of singularity, that unimaginable, incomprehensible moment that comes to existence when the immovable object meets the unstoppable force.

He feels indestructible. Invincible.

Although.

There _is_ one thing...

* * *

“What’s this?” Kakashi asks, a bit redundantly in Naruto’s opinion.

“Form 57H, Commander. Declaration of recurring consensual sexual relations with a fellow agent, with an intention to continue.”

“Huh. Wasn’t that 57E?”

“That’s for a single incident of consensual sexual contact, without an intention to continue.”

“Wow, Naruto. When I’d partnered you both, I had only hoped my cute student would domesticate the newest prickly addition to my personal petting zoo. As usual, you’ve managed to surprise me.”

“Er, thank you?”

“No.” Kakashi’s lone visible eye shines with unshed tears. “Thank you.”

“Um,” Naruto says, and reaches out over the large oak table of Kakashi’s office to pat him on the shoulder because that seems like the appropriate thing to do. “Are you having a senior moment? Is that what this is?”

“Well, these bones aren’t getting any younger,” Kakashi wipes a lone tear with his finger. “Oh, and if you come across Sasuke, can you ask him to join me for dinner tonight? Tell him his family misses him.”

“Will do, Kakashi. Will do.”

* * *

It’s 10th October, Naruto’s thirtieth birthday. He’s woken up at around 2 am when the warmth and softness he’d been cuddling starts trying to escape.

“Wha--” He grumbles blearily, loosening his grip and allowing Sasuke to slide out.

“Go back to sleep,” Sasuke says quietly. Naruto’s not sure if he imagines the soft kiss on his forehead, but imagined or not, it’s nice. Really nice.

His eyes droop shut.

“You can stay, y’know,” he mumbles, already dipping back into sleep. “If you want.”

Sasuke greets him in the morning with a sharp smirk and a round of absolutely filthy birthday fucking, but there’s a tightness around his eyes that implies that he hadn’t slept nearly as well as Naruto had.

Naruto doesn’t ask him about it.

Sasuke stays back the next time Naruto sort-of asks.

And the time after that, even though Naruto doesn’t ask him to.

* * *

So. This thing between them. Maybe it’s not nothing?

Whatever. Naruto has always worn his heart on his sleeve. He’s not going to be pushy, but if Sasuke can’t deal with it, then it’s his problem.

* * *

When the two of them get promoted to Level 9, Tsunade herself descends from her lofty towers to extend her congratulations. Then she snaps at them to follow her to Kakashi’s office, where Neji is waiting for them, and she debriefs them on their newest mission that involves bringing back a rogue Leaf operative dead or alive. 

The mission is officially dubbed Operation Red Dawn. Their target is a guy called Tsukuyomi, an erstwhile brilliant agent who had apparently gone on a psychotic bender before defecting some fifteen years back to join the shadow organization, Akatsuki.

The large screen that occupies the room’s north wall shows the picture of a 20-year old man - a boy, really - in ANBU Black Ops uniform. He has dark hair, serious eyes and a severe set to his mouth.

“Yeesh,” Naruto says, looking at their target’s rather colourful history and skillsets. He feels a little sick as he reads three specific names - _codenames_ \- on the screen: Shunshin, Kyougan and Nobility. “Were they…?”

“Yes,” Kakashi confirms, serious in the rare way he gets when he’s talking business and not trying to maintain some half-assed image. “All high ranking Leaf personnel, killed in their quarters. Tsukuyomi had been personally close to all of them.”

“Do we know what caused him to defect?” Neji asks.

“We do not,” Tsunade says. “He had shown nothing but unwavering loyalty to Leaf before that. We have been trying to track him for fifteen years, but as you can see, he has been extremely difficult to pin down. We’ve only been able to catch a solid lead now thanks to Agents Inuzuka and Aburame’s efforts over the last year.”

“What changed?” Sasuke asks in that abrupt way of his. “You have been looking for this man for over a decade. Why is he showing himself now?”

“We believe he may be terminally ill,” Tsunade says. “And my hospital has the cure. This gives us an opportunity for negotiation. Access to our medical capabilities and legal protection in return for information on the networks he has formed as an extremely successful mercenary. Any more questions?”

Nobody says anything, so Tsunade continues. “Sharingan and Hokage will approach him from the ground. Byakugan will provide cover. Once contact is made, you will attempt negotiation. You know what to do if talks fail. Keep it silent and discreet.”

Kakashi takes over and details their expected timelines, available resources and negotiation space.

Naruto tries to listen, but finds his eyes straying towards the boy’s face on the screen. He thinks about the Shinto tale of the disgraced moon god who was so obsessed with his own idea of etiquette that killed his own kin.

Naruto can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to turn on the people who consider him their friend.

* * *

Sasuke catches Naruto outside the gym the evening before they’re supposed to ship out. Naruto hastily waves Sakura off, who narrows her eyes suspiciously, before jogging the last few steps to Sasuke, who looks slightly amused.

“Didn’t know you owned jeans,” Naruto grins, in lieu of a hello. It’s true - Sasuke’s idea of casual civilian wear even while undercover involved neatly-pressed trousers.

“Just the pair,” Sasuke replies. Naruto briefly despairs how he can make something as boring as black jeans and a shapeless navy sweater look good as they fall into step in the direction of the showers near Naruto’s quarters.

“Right. So, what do you want?”

“Join me for dinner.”

“What? _Now?_ ”

“Preferably.”

“Uh,” Naruto asks slowly. “Like, in the mess or outside?”

“Outside,” Sasuke says in the tone he reserves for some of Naruto's more original ideas. “There’s a highly recommended Asian place not far from here.”

“Oh, okay. Is anyone else coming?”

“I don’t know anyone else.”

“Right, right. You’re too cool to have any other friends. Also, I must ask. Is this, like, a date?”

“I told you earlier, dumbass,” Sasuke smirks. “It can be whatever you want it to be.”

“Sasuke Uchiha, you _romantic,_ ” Naruto mock-gasps and then grins. “I’ll take a quick shower and join you, yeah?”

“Sure.”

Naruto takes his shower in record time and rushes back to meet Sasuke. Between work and everything, it's taken them almost a year of sleeping together to go out somewhere. Together. Like normal people.

He’s allowed to be a little excited about it.

Unfortunately, Kakashi stops them just as they are about to exit HQ.

“Ah, Sasuke!” Kakashi exclaims cheerily, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. “Do you have a moment?”

“Nope,” Sasuke says tersely. He grabs Naruto’s shoulders and tries to steer him around Kakashi, who mirrors the movement so that they can’t pass. Being an asshole, Naruto confirms, is probably genetic.

“Just heading out for dinner, Commander,” Naruto explains.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Kakashi says sheepishly. “There’s just a few things for tomorrow I need to run through Sasuke again.”

“Oh,” Naruto says, trying to tamp down his mild disappointment. “Do I need to be there too?”

“It’s just some legal stuff about these kinds of ops. You’ve done this before, so you would have internalized it all by now anyway.”

“I don’t care,” Sasuke says firmly. “I’m going out for dinner. With Naruto.”

“This is really important, Sasuke,” Kakashi says, still smiling, still slouching, but there’s an undercurrent of steel in his tone. “Don’t break my heart like this.”

“Eh, it’s okay,” Naruto says. “Duty calls. We can always go once we’re back, right? Rain check.”

Sasuke exhales slowly through his nose and loosens his vice-like grip on Naruto’s shoulders with great difficulty. “Fine. Once we’re back.”

“Excellent!” Kakashi says. He puts his arm around Sasuke, who bristles like an angry cat, but allows himself to be whisked away.

Naruto watches them leave and because he’s put on nice clothes anyway, he texts on the group to see if anyone is free to go out for dinner.

* * *

Turns out that Tahiti had been _nothing_ compared to the clusterfuck that is Operation Red Dawn.

Sasuke, Neji and Naruto trace Tsukuyomi up all the way to the vast tundras of Chukotka in eastern Siberia in late February. The ground team makes first contact with the target at the outskirts of the Arctic port town of Pevek.

Tsukuyomi stands in front of them, a black and red cloaked figure in the snow. His hands aren’t raised in surrender, but he’s not displaying any signs of hostility either.

“We are from Leaf,” Naruto tells him, his voice loud and carrying. “We are here to negotiate. We know you’re sick. Surrender peacefully and we will provide you with the healthcare you need and full legal protection from your past charges.”

Tsukuyomi silently watches Naruto, glancing at Sasuke for a second and then back to him. He doesn’t say anything, so Naruto continues. “In return, you will provide Leaf with substantiable information on every movement you have made in the fifteen years since your defection.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Tsukuyomi finally says at length. He sounds extremely polite, apologetic even, at the inconvenience caused by him not acquiescing. He sounds less like a psychotic mercenary and more like the proper kind of guy you’d want to bring home to meet your parents.

“If you don’t surrender, we are authorised to take you out.”

Tsukuyomi slowly drags his eyes from Naruto and fixes Sasuke with an inscrutable look. “And you?” He asks. “Will you agree to kill me too, Sasuke?”

A chill shoots through Naruto and it doesn’t have anything to do with the latitude they’re on. “How do you know his name?”

Sasuke opens his mouth, closes it, and sighs. Then he reaches out and plucks Naruto’s comm out of his ear before Naruto can react.

“Yeah, about that…” he says, grinding the comm to dust under his heel. He turns his back to Tsukuyomi and raises the wrong end of the gun to Naruto’s face, finger resting on the trigger.

Naruto thinks he sees shock flit through Tsukuyomi’s composed face for a millisecond, but he doesn’t have the time or mental bandwidth to analyse that because he has far bigger problems of his own, thank you very much.

“What the _fuck,_ Sasuke,” Naruto demands. “What do you think you are doing?”

“What does it look like, moron?” Sasuke says, a typical reply, except there is absolutely _nothing_ typical about this insane situation they are in.

“Are you kidding me, asshole?”

“Does it fucking look like I’m laughing?”

“You always let your emotions get the better of you,” Tsukuyomi interjects from behind Sasuke. His prior politeness is gone, replaced by ugly, condescending cruelty. “It’s disappointing to see that you haven’t changed at all.”

“You shut up,” Sasuke snaps at Tsukuyomi, though his eyes don’t leave Naruto. “I’ve had enough of your games. I know the truth.”

“You merely think you know, but as always, you are blinded and limited by your own foolishness.”

“I know the choices they gave you. I know what they made you do, and why you did it.”

“I killed them all only because I wanted to test myself,” Tsukuyomi says frigidly. “There was nothing more to it.”

“Oh yeah?" Sasuke asks, voice hard. "Even Shisui?”

Naruto frowns. “Hey…”

“If you really know what happened, then why-” Tsukuyomi says after a pause, completely ignoring Naruto. He suddenly sounds terribly young, voice impossibly raw. And Naruto, who’s slowly realising that he’s stumbled onto something that he’s not a part of, is thrown back to that horrible night in Tahiti when he had been elbow deep in Sasuke’s blood.

_(If you knew I would survive, then why did you still take my bullets for me?)_

“Because I love you,” Sasuke says evenly. His gun doesn’t waver from Naruto’s face, neither do his eyes. “For once, I want you to listen to what I am saying. Understand me. I’m not going to repeat myself. It doesn't matter how much you hurt me, how much you manipulate me. I hate you more than anything else in the world, but I also can't get myself to stop loving you."

“Sasuke…”

“I was in a very dark place when you left,” Sasuke continues quietly. He’s still watching Naruto. “You know what you meant to me, and the full extent of what you did. I didn’t have any reason to live, and there were times when I almost didn’t. I made some very questionable decisions. Once I finally managed to get my head out of my ass, I promised myself I would fix us. I would find my- I would find you. I finally have, and I'm not letting go.”

“Okay,” Naruto says carefully, finally finding his voice. This situation is officially out of his hand, and he’s looking at his partner of two years in a terrifyingly new light now. “You guys clearly have a lot going on. Let’s continue this conversation over some coffee back at Leaf, shall we?”

“Sorry Naruto,” Sasuke says, not sounding sorry at all. “It’s like he said. I’m afraid that’s not possible. He’s not going back to Leaf, and neither am I.”

“You will do no such thing,” Tsukuyomi says sharply. “I won’t allow you to throw away your life like this.”

“What life?” Sasuke laughs bitterly, and ends up sounding a bit deranged, a bit broken. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to compose himself. “Stop trying to control everything I do. Despite your best efforts, you're not even particularly good at it.”

That, more than anything, seems to shut the older man up.

“So you’re just going to leave?” Naruto demands. “Just like that?”

“I had warned you to not get in my way. Go back to Leaf.”

Naruto points his gun at Sasuke’s gut. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“I don’t want to fight you, Naruto.”

“Good, ‘cause that makes it the two of us!”

They stare at each other, breath condensing in slow white puffs.

The silence is broken when Tsukuyomi starts to cough a horrible, heaving, wet cough that leaves blood dribbling down his chin. 

“Excuse me,” he says politely once it stops and wipes his chin on the back of his sleeve. He sways slightly where he stands.

Gaze unwavering, Sasuke digs out a small unmarked bottle from the pockets of his winter camouflage and tosses it over his shoulder. Tsukuyomi snatches it out of the air with one hand.

“Ten millilitres every six hours. I have more.”

“Did you steal that?” Naruto asks, because he has to know. He has to know if Sasuke had joined Leaf with the intention to betray them in the end, or if he had made the decision just now. “How long have you been planning this?”

“How far would you go for the person you love, Naruto?” Sasuke replies, a question and an answer wrapped in one.

Naruto hesitates at that, the point of his gun wavering. Sasuke takes that split second to shoot him twice in quick succession, once in each knee.

Excruciating pain blooms up Naruto’s legs and he goes down as his joints give away. Tsukuyomi makes an aborted motion, like he’d been about to grab someone.

“You motherfucker,” Naruto gasps incredulously. He can barely breathe through the fire in his lower body. “You shot me!”

“Stop crying,” Sasuke says dismissively, kicking Naruto’s gun out of his hand. "You'll get better."

Naruto makes the tactical decision to not struggle, not wanting to lose more blood than absolutely necessary. He has seen first-hand how vindictive Sasuke can get when he’s in the middle of one of his hissy fits, and this is way beyond a simple hissy fit.

“Itachi, take your goddamn medicine and help me secure him. This stubborn idiot’s not going to stay down for long.”

“You’re making a terrible mistake,” Tsukuyomi - _Itachi_ \- says calmly, but acquiesces anyway. He is gentle but efficient, taking care to not jostle Naruto around unnecessarily, which is more than what can be said for Sasuke.

“I agree,” Naruto grits out. “I don’t know what’s going on, Sasuke, it’s not too late. Both of you can still come back. I won’t tell anybody what happened. Think- think of your father.”

“You don’t know anything about my father.”

“I know Kakashi wouldn’t want you to be branded a traitor.”

Itachi’s hands still around Naruto’s thighs. “Kakashi? Kakashi Hatake?”

“My CO,” Sasuke explains impatiently.

Itachi is quiet for a while. “I see. Very well, then. You can come with me.”

“Your head must be really far up your ass if you thought I was waiting for your permission.”

“I hurt you. It was never my intention. I apologise.”

“Itachi, you beat me so hard that they had to dig bone fragments out of my brain for weeks.”

By the time the two of them are done, Naruto’s lying half-naked in the snow, his arms and legs trussed behind his back with wire sharp enough to slice through bone.

“Are you sure your friend’s going to be alright?” Itachi asks, looking concerned. “Perhaps we should put his thermals back on?”

“If I lose my dick to frostbite, I’m going to kill you,” Naruto threatens, teeth beginning to chatter. “I swear to God, Sasuke. You’re going to fucking die if I lose my dick.”

Sasuke ignores the both of them and takes his own comm out of his ear, turning it on. “Byakugan, you there?”

 _“Sharingan?”_ Neji’s voice filters through. _“I don’t see anyone. Where are you guys?”_

“Ten kilometres north of your nest.”

_“The fuck? Why didn't anyone update me earlier? I’m at the coordinates you gave me.”_

“I know. If you want Naruto to live, I suggest you start running,” Sasuke says brusquely and cuts Neji off before he can reply.

Sasuke is a loner with no friends or attachments. The only thing Naruto knows about Sasuke’s past is that he had been one of Orochimaru’s infamous test subjects (an event apparently triggered by Itachi, holy shit), and that he had been strong and opportunistic enough to kill the snake.

So Naruto doesn’t know what he can say to make him stay. Outside of Kakashi, the only thing he has tying him back to Leaf is--

Well.

The only thing Sasuke has can’t even begin to hold a candle to whatever monstrosity that exists between him and his strangely polite, terminally ill, frighteningly abusive, internationally wanted terrorist (ex?) lover.

The man who Sasuke had apparently never given up on, the man who didn’t want Sasuke to defect on his account either.

“Goddammit,” Naruto says, helpless tears prickling the back of his eyes. He feels very tired suddenly, though that might be attributed to the blood loss and onset of hypothermia. “We were supposed to go for dinner after this, you bastard. It could have been a date.”

Sasuke kneels down and gently threads his fingers through Naruto’s hair. Itachi watches them, in much the same way Sasuke watches things.

_(I watch people. I watch you.)_

“I’m sorry,” Sasuke says, and for the first time, there's something like genuine regret colouring his voice. “Maybe in another life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Just wanted to read where a fic where Naruto, in true disaster fashion, mistakes Itachi for Sasuke's bf (instead of brother) and tries to be vv supportive, much to Sasuke's confusion (and obvious interest in Naruto)
> 
> 2\. Couldn't find any (there's a lot of sasunaru fics out in the wild), so I wrote this.
> 
> 3\. Also, the core concept for this fic had only a few specific scenes, not more than 4-5k words long in all. Everything else is just...glue, which makes this monstrosity sit at ~19k words rip. 
> 
> 4\. If you've read this far, thanks again. We live in some truly frustrating times and I hope everybody's staying afloat the best that they can. :)
> 
> 5\. Kudos/comments make a poor girl happy. ^^


	3. Alien Territory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto’s righteous indignation gives way to awkward befuddlement. “Dude. Are you insulting me or complimenting me?”
> 
> “I don't know!" Sasuke exclaims angrily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments and generous kudos in the last chapter! I have anxiety, so sorry if I don't reply haha. But they really mean a lot!
> 
> Also, shoutout to the one of the most beautiful lines ever written in cinema:
>
>> "Dave, she honeydicked me. She used me to take out Kim Jong-Un!"  
>   
> \- _The Interview_ , 2014

Naruto doesn’t actually end up losing his penis to frostbite, which is about the only silver lining he can find in the entire situation, because the weeks following Red Dawn count among the worst of his entire life. 

Medical only gives him enough time for him to thaw and for his vitals to stabilize before T&I drops by to wring him through back-to-back interrogation sessions. Naruto can’t say for sure how many because he loses count after the sixth one.

He tiredly tells them all the same thing, which is to say, he tells them the truth.

_No, he had not given any indication he had been planning this._

_Yes, I suspect this was not an impulsive decision._

_No, I believe his motivations were of a purely personal nature._

_No, I believe he left me alive because at some level, he cared._

_Yes, I had multiple chances to stop them both, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it._

And—

“Are you kidding me?” Naruto explodes, the first and last time Inoichi asks him the question. He would have jumped to his feet had his legs still not been feeling like overcooked ramen. He settles for gesturing wildly instead. “I’ve given my life and body to Leaf. You ask me to jump, I say how high. You ask me to kill, I say where. Ten years, after ten years of my blood and sweat and _humanity_ , you have the absolute fucking gall to question _my_ loyalty?”

Inoichi is decidedly unimpressed at the outburst and informs him as such.

Naruto grimaces. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. You know Leaf is the only home I've ever had. I have no intention of going anywhere.”

His sessions down at T&I’s dungeons are nowhere near as bad as the pitying looks his friends send him. And while he’s generally all for people getting together and weeping about their feelings to achieve catharsis, he’s eternally grateful that none of his friends come forward and try to talk to him about his Siberian misadventures.

(None of them, except Neji, who keeps throwing him angry glances every now and then. 

It’s understandable. Naruto is supposed to be strong and infallible. More than an agent, he’s supposed to be a symbol of the perseverance of human will. The guy with a heart of gold who can do the impossible if he puts his mind to it.

But Neji was the one who had found him frozen in his own blood with his legs shattered, Neji was the one who had had to drag him and his non-existent pulse through the Arctic. Neji, who had disliked Sasuke’s Sasuke-ness ever since their first spar.

So Naruto lets it slide.)

* * *

Things come to a peak with Kakashi’s very public arrest.

Naruto is in the cafeteria, kneecaps more or less back to their usual range of flexibility. He's in a heated debate about the merits of being poisonous versus being venomous when the doors fly open and two uniformed officers stride in.

The insignia on their collars identifies them as Internal Affairs, and it’s never a good sign when Internal Affairs starts looming in your general vicinity whilst in full regalia.

“Kakashi Hatake,” one of the officers announces. The cafeteria falls silent as people start looking up from their meals and conversations pause. “We need you to come with us.”

“Is that so?” Kakashi says vaguely, not lifting his head from the week’s raunchy bodice ripper. “May I know why?”

“You are under arrest for multiple acts of treason,” the officer says. “The charges against you include, but are not limited to: leaking classified information to enemy interests, wilful ignorance of actions that have caused and can cause harm to the well-being of Leaf personnel, and aiding the recent defection of a Level 9 agent.”

Naruto’s body is moving before his brain can register it. Sakura grabs the back of his jacket and yanks him back down.

“Sit down,” she hisses. “You can’t pick this fight.”

“But–“

“I know Kakashi as well as you do, but we can’t help him like this.”

“Okay,” he bites out. “All right.”

Across the room, Kakashi closes his book. “Well,” he says, rubbing his face with a yawn. “Guess it was only a matter of time. Where do I surrender my gun?”

Kakashi gets his hands cuffed in front of him, which Naruto thinks is in poor taste considering that the man seems very happy about the entire affair and doesn’t really protest.

“Impeccable timing, by the way,” Kakashi even remarks as they escort him out of the cafeteria. “You wouldn’t _believe_ the amount of pending paperwork you people have rescued me from.”

* * *

“Let me bring Sasuke back,” Naruto says without preamble.

“No,” Tsunade says, not even pretending to think about it.

“It’s my fault. Give me this mission. Let me fix things.”

“Say you bring Sasuke back. Then what?”

“The same thing you wanted to offer Tsukuyomi. Protection detail. Possible reinstatement. Sasuke did not leave Leaf, he joined Itachi. There’s a difference.”

Tsunade looks up from her phone at Itachi’s name. “Exactly. He joined Itachi, which was his intention from the very beginning. As far as we are concerned, he’s gone rogue.”

“That’s my point, he’s not! He just wants to be with Itachi. If Itachi’s with Leaf, he’ll come back.”

“Naruto, you can’t let your personal feelings about Sasuke–”

“That has nothing to do with this!”

Tsunade fixes him with a piercing look. “Doesn’t it? Look at yourself. You’re emotionally compromised. Can you even say for sure that Sasuke wasn’t using you?”

“Using me for what?” Naruto asks, dumbfounded. “He never asked me for anything suspicious or inappropriate. _I_ was the one who made him buy all our meals.”

Tsunade sighs. “Naruto, I’m talking to you not as your boss, but as your godmother. You are an irreplaceable part of Leaf and very important to me personally. Sasuke could very well have been a honeypot operative.”

“Sasuke was a honeypot?!” Naruto asks, eyes bugging out of his head. “How can you be sure?”

“We can’t be,” Tsunade says grimly. “And despite Agent Morino’s best efforts, the only person who _can_ refuses to talk about anything that’s not in the Kama Sutra.”

* * *

“Hey, Ino?”

 _“I’m busy.”_

“Yeah, I know, sorry, but it’s kinda important.”

_“Alright, give me a minute.”_

Naruto waits patiently while the sound of things breaking and people whimpering filters through the phone. Ino tells whoever is with her to be a good baby and that mommy will be back to take care of them soon.

 _“What happened?"_ Ino asks breathlessly. _"I’m working."_

“It won’t take much time. So, you’re...hot, right? Like, insanely hot?”

_“Yes, and I put a lot of effort and money into keeping it that way.”_

“And you have this knack for figuring out how people’s minds work, which lets you manipulate them into divulging their darkest secrets.”

_“Aw, Naruto! You’re making me blush.”_

“And these two things combined make you Leaf’s seduction and infiltration expert.”

_“Not to brag, but pretty much.”_

“So, as an expert, what are your opinions on Sasuke being an enemy honeypot operative?”

_“Firstly, the correct term for Sasuke would be honeydick. Secondly, God. He was **really** hot, wasn't he? That said, I don’t want to encourage your obsession with him, so I’m not going to be a part of this conversation. Goodbye, Naruto.”_

* * *

In face of Ino’s uncooperation, the only option Naruto has is to break into T&I’s frankly archaic holding cells and talk to Kakashi. He comes up with a fairly simple 3-stage plan for this.

The first part of his plan requires Sakura’s help, who wheedles out Kakashi’s exact cell number from her doctor friends.

The second part of his plan involves gaining access to T&I’s unnecessarily high-tech control room by charming the pants off officers, most of whom still feel a little guilty about the third degree they had put Naruto through previously.

The third and last stage of his plan requires a truly astonishing display of strength and dexterity, which is his forte.

“Hey, Kakashi,” Naruto says after successfully executing all three stages of the plan. “You got a minute?”

Kakashi unfolds himself from his cot and peers through the bars of his cell. He’s still wearing his mask for some reason, though his eyepatch is gone, leaving a scarred and milky eye behind. He also looks quite battered, thanks to Ibiki’s overenthusiastic love for his job.

“Ah, Naruto!” He says pleasantly. “How nice of you to break in! For you, I have five.”

“It’s about Sasuke.”

“Oh,” Kakashi looks visibly disheartened, presumably because the subject did not involve written porn. “What do you want to know?”

“Did you know he was honeydicking me?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, the male version of a honeypot.”

“I...er, was only aware of the facts you filled in your form. Nothing more than that.”

Naruto narrows his eyes. “Then why did they put you in the dungeons?”

“Ah…” Kakashi trails off and clears his throat. “Well. It’s actually a bit embarrassing, you see…”

“Kakashi, please.”

“Well, you see, back in the day, Tsukuyomi–”

“Itachi.”

“Yes, yes, Itachi. Back in the day, I was a mentor of sorts to Itachi. We used to be quite close and I had nothing but deep respect for his approach towards life. Then he killed some of our best people and ran off to have his merry way. Years later, I brought in my ward, who also almost killed _you_ before running off with Itachi to have his merry way. Connect these two incidents to the facts that I was the one that pushed the Director into assigning Sasuke as your partner, and I was the one who had assigned your team to bring Itachi back, and you can see how things start looking very, very bad for poor old me.”

Naruto crosses his arms. “So either you knowingly helped Sasuke in honeydicking me, or he had you fooled too.”

“Or maybe,” Kakashi counters. “He did actually care for you but chose to prioritize his duty to his past.”

“What duty?”

“Well, who can really say? Sasuke always seemed like a dutiful person. Maybe you should ask him.”

“Right,” Naruto says. “Do you, uh, do you need help getting out? Is there anything we can do to prove your innocence?"

“No no, please don’t bother. This is probably the best vacation I’ve had in years.”

“Uh, sure,” Naruto says dubiously. As intelligent as the man was, he did tend to randomly mindfuck people just for his bizarre entertainment. “Last question. Did you know about Sasuke and Itachi?”

“All of the top brass did,” Kakashi reveals benevolently.

“What the fuck? Why does everybody know about their secret relationship?”

“Well, it was never really a secret. They used to be quite inseparable before Itachi’s little murder spree.”

“...And you still sent Sasuke out for Red Dawn.”

"Ah," Kakashi shrugs, and has the grace to look sheepish. "Well, I guess he had all of us fooled in that regard. He convinced us that he viewed Itachi as nothing but his worst enemy. Besides, I sent _you_ specifically because you have a way with...emotionally charged negotiations. Sasuke tagged along only because he had proven to be a reliable partner.”

Naruto takes a while to digest this piece of information.

“Hah!” he exclaims. “That bastard! He used me to get to Itachi. It _was_ honeydicking!”

Uncharacteristically, Kakashi winces with his one good eye. “Please stop using that word.”

* * *

He’s not going to deny it - it hurts. It really does.

It’s all a confusing mix of the bad (the entire fiasco in Chukotka) and the good (literally everything else), and he can’t tell which moments were lies disguised as truths and which were truths disguised as lies.

Even worse, he can’t tell which were actually lies and which were actually truths, and it hits him at the randomest of moments without warning, making him so angry and miserable that he can barely see straight, let alone breathe.

It’s not even totally about the sex (or feelings) thing. What really frustrates Naruto is how inefficient his dependence on Sasuke has made him in the field.

He goes back to not having a dedicated, permanent partner and starts requesting more solo missions. And when he’s assigned a teammate out of necessity, the results are frustrating. _Subpar._

It’s not that they don’t complete their objectives, but it’s the little things. Like how whoever he’s partnered with is just a fraction of a second slower, or half a beat out of sync. Or how there’s the slightest moment of hesitation when Naruto decides to take an original approach to things instead of sticking to the mission parameters.

(How there isn't a steadying hand on his shoulder when he trips over his own feet because he can't bother to be aware of his surroundings sometimes.

Or the fact that he needs to constantly make a _slight_ effort to ensure he and his partner will make it out alive, instead of just knowing _implicitly_ that both of them will be fine.)

These were not the kind of things that had bothered him pre-Sasuke.

It’s not–

It’s not the same.

Sai is an interesting guy, Sakura is his best friend, Lee inspires him like nothing else, but.

It’s just not the same.

Naruto wonders if Sasuke, wherever he is, feels the same. He wonders if Sasuke still treats himself to strange local cuisine whenever he gets the chance. 

* * *

Naruto gets his answer in Paris during Christmas Eve, almost ten months after Red Dawn.

He exits the bakery Chouji had recommended, head bobbing to the music playing in his earphones, and almost chokes on his coffee when he spots Sasuke.

Sasuke is sitting with Itachi in a charming outdoors cafe across the street, bundled in a soft-looking scarf and a nice coat, his stupid hair growing long again. The warm fairy lights makes the little bubble the couple is in look cliché and romantic and dumb.There’s even goddamn _mistletoe_ above their heads.

 _I believe in miracles,_ the singer croons into Naruto’s ears, _where you from, you sexy thing?_

Sasuke’s saying something while Itachi watches on with a soft smile. Itachi interrupts. His mouth moves as he reaches forward and gently taps Sasuke’s forehead. Sasuke swats the hand away and ducks his head, looking a simultaneously disgruntled and flustered, and– is that–

Naruto squints. 

That asshole is even fucking _blushing._

Naruto immediately backtracks into the bakery he had just exited because nope. He can’t handle it.

 _There is no objective morality,_ he reminds himself, staring intently at an assortment of tiny festive cupcakes. _Only the greater good and those who need to be persuaded to not go against it._

By the time he steels himself up to confront the pair and convince them to surrender to Leaf, they have obviously disappeared.

He enters the bakery for the third time in as many minutes and buys all the cupcakes to make himself feel better.

* * *

Due to Kakashi’s continued (and apparently enthusiastic) incarceration, Naruto has to go to Deputy Director Danzo for debriefs after every mission.

And, despite his personal...everything concerning Sasuke, he’s still a good agent. A loyal agent. He puts what he saw in Paris (minus the nauseating romance) in the _Additional Observations_ section of his report.

The Deputy Director looks at him appraisingly and tells him he’s proud of him for not making contact. He assures him that Sasuke and Itachi are now ANBU’s problem and will soon be in a position to never harm anyone ever again.

Naruto feels like a piece of shit giving a fuck.

* * *

On Constitution Memorial Day in May, Councillor Koharu Utatane throws a fundraiser in her old family mansion deep in rural Japan. The guest list includes some of the most influential politicians and industrialists in Japan.

As one of the Jinchuuriki, Naruto is also in attendance, both as the official liaison for Leaf and as a crowd puller. It’s a mission of another sort, so he had been made to memorise all the attendees’ names and biographies. 

He uses the knowledge to grin, flirt or suck up, depending on the situation. He answers some of the more invasive questions about his physiology jovially and extracts promises from them about donating a little bit more to Councillor Utatane’s charity.

It gets a little exhausting after a while, but hey. As long as it feeds some orphans and ensures that kids with problematic backgrounds don’t end up making questionable life choices, he’s not going to complain.

 _“Everything all right?”_ Sai asks from across the room.

“Yeah,” Naruto says. He eyes the glittering ruby and diamond disaster the woman passing by him is wearing around her neck. It probably costs more than two years' salary and is the special kind of obscene that he can genuinely appreciate.

_“You look really tense.”_

“Just a lot of high-profile people,” Naruto says, making a conscious effort to unwind. His shoulders strain slightly against the tuxedo he had poured himself into. It’s the nicely tailored one he busts out for occasions just like these.

 _“It’s not our job to protect them today,”_ Sai replies. _“They have their own security. Enjoy the food and the champagne.”_

“Yeah, man. Try the baby squid thing, by the way. It’s out of this world.”

Someone comes up to him and Naruto successfully navigates a conversation with the middle-aged guest, laughing good-naturedly when the Dietman expresses his desire and envy to have a body like Naruto’s.

The guest leaves, and Naruto goes back to watching the room.

Then suddenly, a masked man with a sword slides into the room.

“Canvas,” Naruto says, already beginning to move.

 _“On it,”_ Sai replies.

“Ah, our entertainment is here!” Councillor Utatane announces loudly, clapping her hands.

Naruto feels the tension drain out of his body in a wave of relief.

Of course. As the guy steps onto the stage, Naruto has to concede, one doesn’t really be that unsubtle if they want to assassinate someone or hold the whole room hostage. Plus, as a performer, he must have gone through all the necessary security and background checks.

Nothing to worry about.

Naruto accepts a flute of champagne from a passing waitress and thanks her. The room’s main lights dim and the stage glows softly with soft purple and pink lighting. The performer bows deeply and flips open a fan as the opening notes of music fill the air.

Sword aside, the guy on the stage doesn’t really look dangerous. He’s got his hair pulled back in a high ponytail and has a porcelain mask with hawk markings covering his face. The rest of his outfit - from the gaping chest to the weirdly fashionable purple rope obi to the trousers and sandals - gives him a samurai-stripper-ninja look that not many would be able to pull off.

Naruto’s mind wanders as the performer waves the fan around. Dance is fine and all, but he doesn’t really get its subtleties.

It’s only when the guy unsheathes his fake sword and starts spinning through some fast-paced katas does Naruto perk up and start appreciating the man’s movements.

The music swells, a dramatic combination of traditional drums, the shamisen, and an electric guitar. The screen behind the performer flashes through psychedelic images of Shinto gods and goddesses, twisting tornadoes of black flames and lightning, and massive tengu-like creatures clashing. The dancer's abs flex and his long hair swings wildly.

Naruto watches, transfixed and mouth a little dry. He doesn’t get storytelling through dance, but he does get storytelling through martial arts.

The music crests and then stops abruptly. The lights fade back on and the spell breaks. People begin to clap, a scattered applause that gradually snowballs into something louder.

The man bows and sweeps his hand out towards Councillor Utatane from the stage. His gaping kimono top hangs low, and the angle gives Naruto a sharper view of some very nice collarbones and pecs.

Naruto tilts his head. _Those collarbones..._

The Councillor accepts the hand with a girlish giggle and allows herself to be gently pulled on stage.

Hang on a second.

Naruto starts to move towards the stage to get a closer look but he needn’t have bothered because the performer chooses that moment to turn his masked face directly at him.

Those fucking collarbones.

The gun is in Naruto's hand before he can register it. Sasuke throws a knife, which flies in slow motion through the tight space between a businessman and his wife, narrowly missing them. Naruto stops it by the blade with his left hand, centimetres away from his face and time resumes its normal flow in a rush of adrenaline. He drops the knife to the floor and it gets lost in the ensuing panic and chaos when a glass shatters and someone screams.

Naruto wipes his bleeding palm on his thigh, the gash already starting to knit itself back together.

"Quiet," Sasuke says. He has Utatane held roughly her hair, the blade of his very real chokuto kissing her throat.

“SECURITY!” Councillor Mitokado screams. “Where is security?!”

“They’re dead!” Someone else gasps in horror. “He killed them all when the lights were off!”

“The doors aren’t opening! We’re trapped inside!”

“Quiet,” Sasuke repeats, not raising his voice. “Give me what I want, and no harm will come to anyone else.”

Mitokado puffs up his chest. “We will never yield to the likes of you.”

Sasuke shifts the edge of his sword pointedly, nicking Utatane’s skin. A bead of blood rolls down her throat and seeps into the pure white collar of her furisode.

Naruto swears under his breath. Sai, who had been attempting to sneak up on Sasuke from the left, stops moving.

“Sai,” Naruto says urgently into his comm. “It’s Sasuke Uchiha.”

_“Shit. That lunatic. What does he want?”_

“You lunatic!” Mitokado yells. "What do you want?!"

“Just some spare change,” Sasuke replies. Naruto can’t see his face behind the smooth porcelain mask, but he’s sure he has a nasty grin. “Ten million US dollars. Wire transfer.”

“Are you _crazy?_ ” Someone exclaims.

“Less than thirty grand per person,” Sasuke points out mildly. 

“P-Please,” Utatane stammers, “J-Just give it to him.”

Sasuke rattles off a bank account number and waits as people take out their phones and start wiring the money.

“Thank you for your generosity,” Sasuke says after a while, lowers his sword and steps back.

Naruto frowns. Sai verbalises what he’d been thinking. _“He’s being sloppy.”_

A fresh set of security breaks through the door, likely brought by those who had the presence of mind to alert the guards stationed outside. Sasuke kicks the old politician off the stage and Sai dives to break her fall. After a split second of distraction, the time it takes him to register the newest entrants as not a threat, Naruto starts swiftly wading against the tide of freshly panicking guests.

Sasuke turns away from Naruto, ponytail swinging wildly, and runs towards the incoming security. He uses one of the guards’ height as a boost to leap over the entire wave and sprints out of the unattended door, sword in hand.

About seventy percent of the guards immediately turn and follow.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” Naruto asks Utatane.

“Y-yes, thank you,” she replies shakily, but otherwise seems fine. Her back might give her some trouble but the little cut on her throat probably won’t even scar.

“I’ll go after him,” Sai says, starting to run. “You keep the Councillor safe.”

Naruto nods. “Do you have a safe room?”

“Yes, this way please.”

Naruto accompanies the nervous guests to Councillor Utatane’s study with the remainder of the guards. He calms them with his trademark brand of reassuring optimism, but inside, his mind is whirling. 

Sasuke had been flashy and sloppy, and ignored the basics of every hostage situation. To the extent that he’s currently, judging by the distant sounds of sporadic gunfire, still running around with more than half the new security (apparently he'd killed the original detail?) plus Sai on his tail.

All this trouble for some money?

And where the hell was Itachi, anyway?

Unless.

"Councillor Utatane," Naruto says quietly into her ear. Unless Sasuke was the fucking _distraction_. "Do you keep anything valuable on the premises?"

She frowns. "I have an extensive collection of rare weapons and other artifacts all the way back from the Muromachi period."

"No, something more valuable than that."

"Agent Uzumaki, I assure you. They are rare and _extremely_ valuable."

"What about privileged information? Anything of importance to national security?"

Utatane hesitates and shares a glance with Mitokado. They reach her study, and the underground panic room whose entrance is hidden behind the bookcase.

"Councillors, please." Naruto says.

"There might be...a safe," Utatane says slowly. "With some important files. Nothing too bad!" She amends hastily. "But some of the information may be sensitive."

"Sensitive how?"

"It can... destabilize certain important people's careers."

Of course. "Okay. Where is it?"

"There's a safe in the room with the artifacts. Right wing, two floors up. At the end of the corridor."

"Thank you," Naruto says, breaking away from the group. "Canvas?"

_"Here."_

"The guests are safe. Status?"

_"Uchiha gave us the slip. Perimeter guards haven’t seen anyone escape. I'm still looking."_

"Continue looking. I'm going to check something out."

* * *

It doesn’t take him long to find the room, which stands out from the rest on that corridor with its biometric scanner and a heavy-duty reinforced door. Since he couldn’t bring Utatane’s eyes or fingers with him without placing the politician in danger, he keys in the emergency access code she had given him when they parted. The door swings open. 

Naruto stares at Sasuke. Sasuke stares back. He has an arm inside one of the cabinets and the mask is clipped to his fashionable rope obi. There’s dark eyeliner framing his eyes.

Naruto levels his gun in Sasuke’s direction. “Step back.”

Sasuke steps back from the cabinet with a kunai held in his fingers. Much like the guests, it looks old and expensive.

“Petty robbery, Sasuke? Really?”

“Just some gift shopping,” Sasuke says, raising his hands. On principle, Naruto wants to keep his eyes above Sasuke’s neck, which is counterproductive because he really needs to be on the lookout for motion cues. So he lets his eyes observe, and tries to not ogle Sasuke’s Highly Visible Nipples too much.

“Drop it to the ground and keep your hands where I can see them.”

Sasuke doesn’t move. “It’s Itachi’s birthday next month.”

The huge vault at the back of the room is unopened from the outside. “Where is he?”

“Right where he needs to be.”

“I’m serious,” Naruto says, remembering the knife Sasuke had thrown at him earlier, and how it had squeezed through the small gap between the guests before Naruto stopped it. “Drop the fucking kunai.”

Sasuke drops the kunai to the floor without looking away from Naruto and kicks it away with a clatter. “There. I’m unarmed. Happy?”

“Unarmed? There’s a huge fucking sword right there on your hip.”

“Oh,” Sasuke’s lips quirk in a shit-eating grin. “So you do remember my hip.”

 _He’s doing it again_ , Naruto faintly thinks as his ears turn red despite his best efforts. “I was _not_ talking about your dick, you pervert.”

Sasuke shrugs unrepentantly but he must see something in Naruto’s face because he stops smirking. “I’m not letting go of my sword.”

“Your sword or a bullet, asshole. Choose.”

“This sword is the only thing I have left of my mother.”

“What?” Naruto asks reflexively. “What happened to her?”

“She was one of the Leaf agents Itachi slaughtered,” Sasuke replies without missing a beat.

Naruto lowers his gun to stare at Sasuke, because Jesus Christ.

Something suddenly occurs to him. “Are you honeydicking Itachi too?”

“What the hell are you on about?” Sasuke scowls. “Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know what bullshit goes on in that dumpster you call a brain.”

“No wait,” Naruto says, finally understanding. He raises his gun again. “Is it, like, your thing? Is that why you’re dressed like this? The- The makeup, and the hair. And the abs and the pecs. And the collarbones!”

“Me?” Sasuke asks incredulously. “What about you?”

“I’m not the one dressed like a stripper!”

“You might as well be. Who wears a tux that tight? It’s obscene. And don’t let me get started on your hair!”

Naruto’s hand jumps instinctively to his head. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Everything! It’s messy as fuck!”

“Hey!” Naruto protests, genuinely offended. He had actually put an effort into his hair this time.

“It looks like someone’s been running their fingers through it. And all the while in the back there, I was distracted by how much _I_ needed to run _my_ fingers through it!”

Naruto’s righteous indignation gives way to awkward befuddlement. “Dude. Are you insulting me or complimenting me?”

“I don't know!" Sasuke exclaims angrily.

Naruto stares at Sasuke, his heart beating fast and adrenaline spiking through his veins. He feels ready to vibrate out of his skin. The surrealism of the entire situation is only exacerbated by the faint shouts of all the people who are still hunting Sasuke.

Sasuke, who is standing in front of him and staring back.

Naruto’s not sure which one of them starts moving first, but Sasuke’s stalking towards him to intercept, and when their mouths collide somewhere in the middle, it’s wet and messy and hard and glorious. Sasuke’s fingers wind into his spiky hair as Naruto pushes Sasuke’s white top off his shoulders and down to his waist with greedy hands.

There’s a part of Naruto that’s distantly yelling at him that it’s a bad idea, that Sasuke is the enemy now, but he can’t get himself to care. Not the other man is finally here, willing and alive in his arms, making throaty little noises into his mouth. He’s hot all over and the antsy feeling under his skin is still there, but he feels unstoppable. Immovable.

Invincible.

Then, something shifts out in the hallway - a shuffle, followed by the flicker of a shadow, and Naruto hastily shoves Sasuke into the antique cabinet and slams the door shut.

A few seconds later, Sai carefully pokes his head into the room, gun drawn.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says. “I thought I heard someone here.”

“Yeah,” Naruto says, praying that it doesn’t look like he's just had a very enthusiastic tongue down his throat. “Utatane said there were valuables in this room. Thought I’d come check. You find anything?”

“No. Also, heads up. The original guards were merely knocked out, not poisoned to death. Some of them are finally coming to, which means we will have more manpower soon.”

“Oh, that’s great.”

“Do you need company?”

“I’ll manage here. Keep an eye out for Uchiha’s accomplice, by the way.”

“Will do,” Sai nods and smiles his creepy translucent-lipped smile. “See you later, partner.”

Naruto waits for his footsteps to fade before he opens the closet’s door to let Sasuke out.

Sasuke looks as put together as ever, but the flush on his chest and neck is still yet to fade. He looks thoughtfully at the space Sai had previously occupied. “That’s my replacement?”

“You’re not really in a position to get jealous, asshole.”

“I’m not jealous,” Sasuke says without missing a beat, but then adds, “You need to stay away from that guy. There’s something seriously wrong with him.”

Naruto wants to inform him about the sheer hypocrisy of the statement, but very maturely refrains. Instead, he asks, “Why are you doing this, Sasuke? What power does Itachi have over you that you can’t let him go?”

“You won’t understand.”

Naruto spreads his hands out. “Then make me. Leaf is after you. You were already on the shit list before, and after today’s stunt, it’ll just get worse. I know you’re not a bad guy, Sasuke, so why are you making these powerful enemies?”

Sasuke is silent for a while before he speaks. “Think about the one singular thing that has shaped you. Your personal truth. And then, imagine learning that it’s all been one giant, miserable lie. How far will you go to set things right?”

Naruto thinks about his truth - his _truths_. All the people, including Sasuke, who have allowed him to _live_ as a human instead of simply existing as a weapon. Or before that, scrounge around in the streets, an orphan desperate to have someplace to belong to.

“Itachi is not Leaf’s enemy,” Sasuke continues. "Therefore, neither am I. Unfortunately, there are things that we must do which will put the both of us on the other side.”

“Okay,” Naruto swallows, and the last vestiges of his high from their ill-advised kiss evaporates. "You love him."

"More than anything else in the world," Sasuke confirms.

"Okay. I– I get that. Okay."

He doesn't. He really fucking doesn't. _Why did you kiss me, then_ he wants to ask. _You know it meant something._ He thinks that he might be going crazy. But Naruto doesn't know what face he's making, but Sasuke looks at him with an odd expression, and then he awkwardly reaches out and pulls Naruto into a— a _hug._

They're hugging.

Objectively, it’s a truly horrible hug— Sasuke is stiff and pointy and doesn’t seem very sure about what to do with his hands, but Naruto still sort of wilts into the embrace anyway, feeling embarrassingly misty-eyed as he wraps his arms around Sasuke and presses into his skin.

At this point, he doesn't even care if he's being honeydicked. He just doesn't want to let go.

“Listen, Naruto,” Sasuke begins, but cuts off abruptly. His head tilts slightly, and Naruto knows he’s listening in on the invisible comm in his ear. “I'm still where you left me," he tells the person, likely Itachi, on the other side. “No complications.” A short pause. "Understood.”

As soon as he’s said the word, there’s a huge explosion on the opposite wing that shakes the building to its foundations. 

Naruto’s lips twist ruefully as they gently disengage. “That’s your cue, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sasuke says. He bends down and picks the antique kunai he’d dropped earlier.

“Is it really Itachi’s birthday?” Naruto asks a bit miserably. Sasuke nods. “Well, send him my wishes, then.”

The worst part is that Naruto means it. Despite whatever convoluted history the two have, if Sasuke chose to follow that man, well. He must be quite a formidable person to gain that sort of devotion, Naruto's irrational jealousy be damned.

Sasuke looks a little surprised at that. “I will. He’ll appreciate it. Also, sorry about your nose.”

“My nose?” Naruto says, and then understands. He sighs, resigned. “You’re going to enjoy this, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea,” Sasuke says, draws his fist back, and decks Naruto in the face.

The force of the blow cracks Naruto’s head back and he goes crashing back into the display case, which crashes into the next and the next like a line of dominos.

“You fucker,” Naruto hisses, clutching his nose. “I was going to go along with it! You didn’t have to hit me this hard.”

“You’re a terrible actor,” Sasuke whispers. There are shouts and running footsteps coming down the corridor. “Besides, you’ll get better.”

Sasuke takes Naruto’s gun and pumps two bullets into the window before tossing it aside. The glass is reinforced but not bulletproof, so an opaque web of cracks spread out from the dual points of impact. Sasuke breaks into a run and leaps, driving his shoulder into the weakened glass, which shatters the same moment as when the guards burst into the room.

Naruto lunges for his gun and runs to the window to find Sasuke in the passenger seat of a sexy red convertible. It looks suspiciously like the one Councillor Mitokado’s son had driven in. Around him, the guards start shooting, but the bullets bounce harmlessly off the accelerating car because apparently cheap security judged their skill by the number of shots fired per unit time rather than accuracy. In the distance, the estate's burning east wing colours the night a blazing, crackling orange.

Naruto thinks he sees Sasuke glance back as Itachi vrooms off, but he can’t be sure.

* * *

To say that Tsunade is furious would be to make an understatement.

“You’re supposed to be Leaf’s best!” She yells at Naruto and Sai. “Leaf’s _best_ , gentlemen. A Level 9 agent and one as _good_ as Level 9 couldn’t stop a two-bit ransom situation. You caused more damage with your presence than you would have with your absence. Ten million dollars, irreparable property damage, theft of sensitive information, theft of a fucking _car_ , and the complete and utter obliteration of some of the most important artifacts of Japanese history!”

When she puts it like that, it sounds really bad. Naruto winces.

“At least nobody died?” Sai attempts gamely.

“You think those wrinkled old bastards care about that? They’re all up in my tits about fucking _psychological_ distress.”

“To be fair,” Naruto points out reasonably. “We weren’t actually on the security detail?”

“You!” Tsunade rounds up on him, chest heaving. Naruto meets her glare without flinching. She smells like she’s been dipping into the alcohol she keeps under her desk for stressful situations like these. “Don’t even get me started on you. I knew Uchiha had you compromised, but this really fucking takes the cake. The first time you let him go, I could understand. What’s your excuse this time?”

“You asked me to never approach him,” Naruto says. “Besides, I did try to stop him.”

“Did you, Naruto? Did you really? Independent eyewitness accounts agree that they found Leaf’s pride on his goddamn _ass_ with nothing more than a broken nose. Forensics found only _two_ bullets discharged from your gun, and both were fired by _Uchiha_ at the window. So not only did you fail to stop him twice, you allowed him to disarm you and use your weapon. I don’t know whether this is sheer stupidity, incompetence or treason.”

Naruto tries not to wince. He knew he’d screwed up. He’d known it the moment Sasuke and Itachi had left his sight. He should have shot _something_ , preferably Sasuke, to save his own ass. God knew the bastard deserved at least one painful bullet after everything he put Naruto through.

But he had been right; Naruto’s a horrible liar when faced with the right people. He can't lie to himself, and he can’t lie to Sasuke by actually causing harm to him. Neither can he lie to Tsunade, who’s tolerating his presence despite her anger only because she personally _cares_ about her agents, even more so after Jiraiya. 

He hears himself arguing back anyway. “So, what, you wanted him to almost cripple me like last time? I know I heal fast, but having your legs practically blown up fucking hurts, okay?”

Tsunade takes in a sharp breath, her face white with fury. “You’re suspended,” she says, the stillness in her voice belying her anger. “You’re suspended _indefinitely_. Get out of my goddamn office.”

Naruto looks at her in horror. “You can’t suspend me!”

“I can do a lot more than suspend you, Uzumaki. You're not irreplaceable. Now get the fuck out of my office.”

Naruto slams the door on his way out so hard that the frame cracks.

* * *

“Who the fuck does Uchiha think he is?” Naruto sobs later that day, drunk and high into an equally doped Sakura’s lap. She, bless her heart, makes appropriate noises with the appropriate emotions wherever needed. “Asshole came out of nowhere and ruined _everything_.”

Shikamaru hands off his joint and staggers up to put on some depressing avant-garde prog rock/metal to set the mood. The music involves a lot of discordant notes and complicated technical wankery which Naruto can’t say he particularly enjoys, but he appreciates it anyway as it reflects the turmoil in his heart and soul.

He wakes up next morning and glances at Sakura up on the bed and Shikamaru beside him on the floor, snacks and ash scattered everywhere, and finds the large scribble of anxiety he had been carrying in his chest for over a year coil even tighter.

* * *

Naruto’s suspension means that he’s off missions, his salary is pared to the bare bones, and he has only limited access to public places within Leaf campus, including interesting areas like the gym. Or the pool. Or the shooting range. Or any of the multiple training rooms.

Or even the cafeteria with Teuchi and his mass-produced but extremely homely ramen.

He spends the first few days sulking in his bed, occasionally getting high and ordering takeout.

Recreational drug (ab)use is not fun without friends and moping around gets old after the first three weeks, so he pulls out his yoga mat and meditates to buoy his sinking mental health.

Or tries to, anyway, because Shikamaru knocks on his door as soon as he sits down and asks him to come down to the morgue.

* * *

There’s a cheery box on the autopsy table, covered with shiny wrapping paper.

“So?” Kabuto asks, removing the lid.

Naruto peers into the box. The severed head of the creepy fucker who had tried to harvest his blood on the fifth op with Sasuke peers back. 

“Yep, that’s him,” Naruto says.

Shikamaru exhales heavily through his nose and lights a cigarette. Kabuto threatens to douse him in embalming fluid. Shikamaru extinguishes the cigarette.

“Do we have an ID?” Naruto asks.

“You’re still suspended,” Shikamaru points out, while Kabuto says, “Obito Uchiha.”

 _“Uchiha?”_ Naruto yells, immediately triggered. His voice echoes through the morgue’s cavernous halls.

Shikamaru sighs. “FedEx dropped it at the gates this morning. Priority overnight.”

“Who sent it?”

“We don’t know. The return address and point of origin threw up no leads.”

“But who _is_ Obito Uchiha?”

“Ex-Leaf agent,” Shikamaru sighs again, looking ready to hand in his resignation papers. “Reported KIA more than twenty years ago. DNA samples match our database.”

“This looks like a recent beheading,” Naruto points out.

Kabuto does something blasphemous to the dead guy’s exposed windpipe with his gloved fingers. He brings his hand to his face and slowly pulls his surgical mask down. For a wild moment, Naruto thinks that Kabuto’s going to take a lick.

“It is,” Kabuto confirms, sniffing his fingers instead. “Mm. Very fresh too. Pardon me for saying this, but this is a truly exquisite cut. I couldn't have done it better myself.”

Naruto stares at him. “I need to meditate,” he declares abruptly. “Shikamaru, take me back to my room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count? Don’t know her. Also the plot (?) is merely a vehicle for the gay.
> 
> Kudos/comments/other tokens of appreciation appreciated. :)
> 
> (In corporate strategy, _alien territory_ businesses have little opportunities to be improved by the corporate parent, and a misfit exists between the parenting characteristics and the units strategic factors. The parent must divest this unit while it still has undestroyed value.)


	4. ROOT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With two operatives gone rogue, three dead, one reported KIA twenty years before his actual death, the Commander incarcerated and the most stable subject of Project Jinchuuriki put under literal house arrest, Naruto can smell a conspiracy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all - thank you for your clicks, kudos, (lovely) comments, bookmarks & literally everything else.
> 
> Secondly, apologies for the late update. I'd been writing this fic as an escape from pandemic-related bs and my health, debts and number of surviving family members changed and I...kinda lost my muse with this one, ngl. I really didn't want to split the final chapter into two, but figured posting _something_ would pull this fic out of its slump.
> 
>  **Warnings** for genre-typical violence. Also blatant CAtWS scene sorry the thing was too iconic for me to ignore.

Naruto may be an idiot and chooses to be horribly uninformed about certain things, but he's not stupid. Not when it counts.

Something’s been niggling in the back of his head for a while now, just out of his reach. Pieces of a puzzle that have been consciously and unconsciously handed to him. So, he decides to commune with his subconscious by way of prolonged meditation, just like Jiraiya had taught him.

His subconscious takes the form of a giant angry mythical fox and they sit side by side in silence, listening to the ambient sounds of Leaf HQ. Boots stamp down the corridor. Machinery hums. People talk in white noise. His heart beats and air whispers in and out of his lungs. The sounds of life from those trained in taking it away. He's acutely aware of the weight of his tongue in his mouth.

Occasionally, the demonic fox opens its jaw and grumbles something irritably.

Naruto opens his eyes, his brain a narcotic buzz. He digs out a notebook and a pen. The pen is out of ink, so he borrows a pencil.

In the middle of a blank sheet, he writes _SASUKE UCHIHA._

He draws a line from Sasuke and connects it to Itachi. From Itachi’s name, he draws a line and connects it to Akatsuki.

He draws a circle, writes _Shunshin, Kyougan, Nobility_ inside it and connects the circle to Itachi and Sasuke each.

He adds another name to his web: _Kakashi Hatake._ Connects him to Sasuke, Itachi and the circle containing one of the agents who is Sasuke’s mom.

He spends some time deliberating if he should add Obito Uchiha too. Uchiha isn’t that common a surname and in his line of work, coincidences don’t exist.

He writes Obito Uchiha and connects it to Akatsuki with a dotted line, because Killer B had, in passing, mentioned chatter about the group putting out a hit on the Jinchuuriki.

After a brief pause, he writes his own name and connects it with solid lines to Sasuke, Kakashi and Obito.

 _Duty,_ Kakashi had said, so he writes the word down. Kakashi, who could have lied, but had willingly given up his connection with Itachi to Naruto.

 _Do we know what caused him to defect,_ Neji had asked about Itachi.

 _I’ll fix us,_ Sasuke had promised Itachi without turning his eyes away from Naruto.

Truths and lies and setting things right.

Naruto stares at the chart. It makes no fucking sense to him.

But with two operatives gone rogue, three dead, one reported KIA twenty years _before_ his actual death (or murder), the Commander incarcerated and the most stable subject of Project Jinchuuriki put under literal house arrest, Naruto can smell a conspiracy.

* * *

“You think so too, huh?” Shikamaru says when Naruto shows him the sheet.

“What do _you_ think?”

Shikamaru leans back and traces the path from Sasuke to Itachi to Akatsuki to Obito. With Naruto’s name in there, it forms a closed loop.

“After you came back from Siberia,” Shikamaru says slowly. “I tried to dig into the files on Tsukuyomi and the agents he had murdered. I couldn’t access their full files, including their actual names. Not even Itachi’s. The three murdered agents didn’t even have their pictures; only the years of active duty. The next day, Internal Affairs came snooping.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly. I have the highest clearance there _is._ There is no information on Leaf servers that I’m not authorized to access, and therefore no reason for IA to interrogate _me_. Then, Kakashi got arrested, and I stopped trying to dig.”

“So, what? Is Internal Affairs investigating this mess too? Or...were they the coverup and wanted to stop you from finding out what’s going on?”

Shikamaru gives an ugly smile. “Don’t go around throwing such dangerous accusations, Naruto.”

* * *

Naruto itches to confront Tsunade. Demand answers.

He doesn’t.

He keeps his head down, gives his psych evals. Nobody allows him back on the field, but he gets assigned to train the rookies.

The restrictions on his salary and cafeteria time ease up a little bit.

Shikamaru doesn’t bring up their conversation again.

* * *

Two months down the line, Naruto’s having a weird dream about golf when a knock on the door wakes him up.

“Hey,” Sai says, “Tsunade wants the both of us to meet her ASAP.”

Naruto groans. “Let me change.”

“Don't bother. Apparently she doesn’t care if you’re in your underwear, as long as we’re there yesterday.”

Naruto is, in fact, not wearing any underwear, but he _is_ wearing a set of really nice silk pyjamas. He laces up his sneakers and follows Sai out of his room. They walk down the strangely empty corridor of the barracks and into the lift which reveals a few people in it when the doors open.

Sai presses the button down to the 10th level.

“Ten?” Naruto asks. That floor has the more secure interrogation rooms.

Sai shrugs. “She asked us to be there.”

The lift stops occasionally, getting crowded as more people file in, talking in small groups. He sees some wearing hospital scrubs and R&D lab coats, and a couple in suits with briefcases. He recognizes none of them, which is a pity because he could have really done with the conversation.

Most of the lift’s occupants get out with them on the tenth level. Two harried-looking agents sprint past him and into the open elevator, weapons in hand and whispering furiously amongst themselves.

Sai keeps chattering away about a new artist, and Naruto’s absolute attention on him is broken when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a fresh bead of sweat roll down one of the R&D ladies’ temples.

The entire facility is air-conditioned. The R&D lady used the lift.

His eyes flick around and that’s when he notices how _odd_ everybody’s movements are. It’s subtle, but glaringly obvious now that he’s looking. Despite their own spread out subgroups of conversation, the crowd is moving together like a well-oiled team rather than a bunch of random coworkers happening to be walking in the same direction.

Almost like an airtight escort formation, with Naruto right in the middle.

He glances up at the fisheye cameras that dot the ceiling at regular intervals. The little red LEDs that always wink cheekily at him are turned off. The air is heavy with something like anticipation, trepidation. He can taste it, metallic like a knife’s edge on his tongue.

Beside him, Sai continues talking blithely.

Naruto sighs and stops walking. He’s in a pair of fucking _silk_ pyjamas.

“Okay, people,” he says. “If anyone wants to tap out, now’s the time.”

The crowd around him stills, and as one, turns to look at him. Sai flips open an electric baton and smiles vacantly. “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“Huh,” Naruto says. “Sasuke was right about you.”

Sai jabs him in the abdomen in response.

Naruto grunts through the electrocution and sends him flying backwards with a solid kick to the chest. Sai collides with the two in hospital scrubs, sending them crashing into the wall. Someone winds a garrote wire around Naruto’s neck from the back. The men in the suits whip out thick handcuffs, definitely reinforced. Naruto uses the body behind him for leverage and jackknifes before they can get to him, driving his heels into their knees. He slams his elbow into the garrotter’s side till he lets go and incapacitates him with one last jab to the solar plexus.

He barely manages to take in a blessed drag of fresh air before more people, all with vacant smiles eerily like Sai’s, rush in to wrestle him into submission.

It’s all autopilot from there. Divert attention with a flick of the hand. Control space. Separate assailants. Neutralize them before they can regroup.

He dances out of the way of another baton, electricity sparking and buzzing beside his ear, making goosebumps break out across his skin. He grabs his would-be assailant's forearm, spins around, and punches her in the face. She drops like a sack of bricks and Naruto twists her weapon out of her fingers as her hands go slack. He twirls it once, feeling the weight, before using it to dispatch the remaining personnel while desperately praying that nobody’s brains get fried too much.

Sai staggers to his feet, clutching his chest. He has a taser now, which he points at Naruto. “I have my orders,” he wheezes through a smile, which makes him look somewhat deranged. “I’m sorry.”

“Never follow orders you would apologise for,” Naruto says and chucks the live electric baton at him. Sai twitches, and that moment of inattention is all Naruto needs to dart in and execute a sharp uppercut that overloads the nerves at the back of Sai’s neck. He doesn’t bother catching Sai when he falls.

Naruto stands in the middle of the dozen unconscious agents, in nice silk pyjamas and no underwear, and asks himself what the fuck he’s doing. When his brain refuses to supply him with an answer, he bends down and starts clinically unbuckling weapons from the bodies scattered around him and strapping them on himself.

He hears quiet, measured footsteps around the corner. Naruto straightens, palm wrapped around a particularly interesting-looking semiautomatic pistol. It looks like a new prototype, something he’s never seen or used before.

“Hey,” Naruto says.

“What are you doing,” Neji returns, looking unimpressed and pointing one of his fancy rifles at Naruto.

“Aw, come on,” Naruto groans. “Not you too. What did I ever do wrong?”

Neji glances down at Sai and then back to Naruto. “I’m taking you back to your room,” he says, tone brooking no argument, and takes a step forward.

The misery and stress and disappointment crests higher and higher, and something inside Naruto just snaps _._

“No seriously,” Naruto says, beginning to feel anger like he hasn't felt since his angst-ridden teenage years. He fires an experimental shot to test the gun’s response. It’s not bad. Very well balanced. The bullet cracks the marble at Neji’s feet before ricocheting an inch away from his thigh.

Neji, wisely, stops his advance.

“I let Sasuke rough me up a little bit once,” Naruto continues. “And suddenly all my friends think it’s okay to use me as target practice?"

“Naruto,” Neji says carefully. “It’s not safe for you out here.”

“Well, clearly,” Naruto gestures sharply at the dozen or so people at his feet. One of them stirs with a groan and he kicks him in the head with extreme prejudice. The man stops stirring and groaning. “My _room_ is not safe for me either."

“I don’t know what happened here, but I’m sure Sai had only your safety in mind.”

“Safety? It was borderline kidnapping. Neji, I love you man, but you know that you can’t make me go anywhere I don’t want to go.” 

“Fine,” Neji looks as angry as Naruto feels. “If you must know, there’s been...a breach.”

“A breach.”

“Yes,” Neji says stiffly. “Someone has broken into Leaf HQ.”

Naruto stares slack jawed at Neji, anger forgotten. “Who would be dumb enough to break into one of the most secure places on the planet?”

“Who indeed,” Neji mutters. A muscle spasms in his jaw.

No, not dumb. Arrogant. And good enough.

Ah, fuck.

“...It’s Sasuke, isn’t it?”

Neji gives a tight nod. “If Uchiha’s here, Tsukuyomi is too. You can understand why we need you to stay away from the action.”

“Shit,” Naruto says, running his fingers through his hair. “I need to go help him. Fuck.”

“It’s not your responsibility to keep cleaning up after him.”

“Look,” Naruto pats himself down and withdraws the folded chart he had drawn months earlier from his person. He carries it everywhere. He thrusts it at Neji. “There’s something weird going on, and Sasuke is involved. He’s not— He’s trying to fix it, whatever it is.”

Neji dubiously unfolds the sheet and scans it, expression souring. “Is this...diagram supposed to make sense to me?”

“Dunno. Ask Shikamaru."

"He's the one who suggested I intercept you."

"He wants you to help me, then! Where was Sasuke last seen?”

Neji continues to look like he's bitten into a particularly unpleasant lemon.

"I'm going to go looking for him whether you tell me or not," Naruto adds impatiently. "I literally can't get into any more trouble than I already am in." He pointedly gestures at Sai for emphasis.

Neji swears under his breath. “If you let that criminal hurt you again, I’m going to kill him.”

“I won’t,” Naruto says quickly. "I promise. Feel free to kill Sasuke if I get hurt. You have my permission.”

There’s a pause.

“Fine,” Neji says finally. When he speaks, he spunds reluctantly impressed. “The whole of sector 3 is up in flames. And some sort of potent hallucinogenic has been released into the air vents surrounding the Director's office. Intel suggests it’s an assassination attempt, so most active personnel are deployed around these two areas. But _Shikamaru,_ thinks that the M.O. is the same as Utatane's, that all of this is a distraction. Shikamaru," Neji jerks the paper, “is privately of the opinion that Uchiha is trying for a prison break."

* * *

Naruto walks all the way down to the dungeons in handcuffs, sans appropriated weaponry, pretending to look as sheepish and guilty as he can. Neji jabs him in the small of his back with his rifle, glowering and snapping elegantly at everyone who looks their way, which is probably not wholly an act.

Chaos is the only word to describe what meets Naruto when he steps out of the route Sai’s team had cordoned off in their frankly insulting kidnapping attempt. Agents run amok, yelling orders and conflicting information and conducting security checks. The tension ratchets as someone finds another bomb and the area is rapidly cleared out.

Naruto, Naruto loves Leaf and has no fucking clue how he’s going to help Sasuke and still be loyal to the agency (or any non-terrorist organization) at this point.

He shoves the thought into the ever-growing category of things that are not in his best interest to think about at the moment.

They separate at the door leading down to the prisons.

“Thanks,” Naruto says as Neji unlocks his restraints once they’re out of sight of questioning eyes.

“Don’t get killed,” is all Neji has to say as he hands Naruto back the not-insignificant pile of weapons the latter had accrued from Sai’s team. “Hinata will cry.”

* * *

Kakashi sighs heavily when Naruto jogs up to his cell. “Take the sewers,” he says. “There’s an open line up ahead. Follow the smell.” 

“What?” Naruto gapes. “You mean they’re not here to break _you_ out?”

“No,” Kakashi says quietly, sounding old and weary, eons away from the bizarre, unbendable man Naruto knows and loves. He stares at his hands, looking lost. “They’re here for someone far more important.”

* * *

The _open line up ahead_ happens to be a hole someone blew into the wall to expose the plumbing.

“Yuck,” Naruto mutters to himself as he steps around the rubble and neatly jumps down the pipe. He keeps his limbs tucked in it so that he doesn’t touch the walls and hopes that nobody’s using the toilets connected to this outlet.

Thankfully, it’s a vertical drop. He lands with a disgusting splash and his beloved sneakers squelch in the foul-smelling sludge. In the dark, he can make out a semi-circular opening up ahead, which leads to the main drainage channel. The metal grille covering it has already been removed and placed carefully to the side.

The _plinks_ of dripping water echo through the tunnel. A rat squeaks as it skitters past.

He ducks through the opening and jumps down to the main drain, wading across the knee-high channel to boost himself up onto the walkway on the side. It’s dark and damp, but he can make out two pairs of ridged bootprints on the concrete, which he carefully follows.

Naruto couldn’t have missed the faintly-glowing door nestled in the wall even if he had tried.

It’s an extremely high-tech door for a sewer, complete with all the biometric bells and whistles, and rests slightly askew on its hinges. It creaks open without much resistance to reveal a foreboding flight of stairs that goes up.

He slides out the interesting gun he had appropriated earlier, confirms the number of bullets in the magazine and silently starts climbing, keeping his back against the wall. He can hear the low hum of machinery overhead.

There’s another door at the top of the stairs, also fancy, also suspicious, also looking like it had been forced open. He gently nudges it open with his foot and clinic-white light spills out in a narrow arc. He slides in a knife through the crack, tilting it so that he can sweep the entire room through its reflection on its polished blade.

“What the fuck,” he breathes, and pushes the door open.

It’s a huge lab of some sort, with a matrix of vertical cylindrical tanks that seems to go on forever. Suspended in each tank, in the faintly glowing green-tinged liquid are… _people,_ with chlorophyll-green hair and skin as white as bleached paper. They’re all identical, with their too-wide mouths, masculine build and the lack of primary sexual characteristics between their legs. From nearest to Naruto, the plaques at the bottom of the tanks are a series: Zetsu #67, Zetsu #68 and so on.

The Zetsu float benignly in their tanks, barely reacting to his presence, although a few pairs of unnerving pale-yellow eyes track him as he passes. The skin at the back of his neck prickles.

Then, in the distance, there's a crash, like glass shattering, and the squeak of haphazard boots over tile. He changes direction instantly, feet barely making a sound as he cuts through the matrix of suspended clones.

“Hurry up,” he hears Sasuke hiss.

“Security parameters have changed,” a low voice, likely Itachi’s, replies.

He crouches down behind one of the tanks (with _Zetsu #236_ inscribed on a plaque on its base) when he gets closer and carefully cranes his neck.

The first thing he notices that the glass of one of the tanks at the very end of the row is cracked open, the thick, viscous liquid seeping out in an oily spill on the sterile white tiles. The second thing he sees is the inhabitant of the tank, skin slick with the tank’s fluid, locked in an awkward grapple with Sasuke.

Sasuke’s thankfully dressed normally this time, in black tac gear, with his sword strapped to his back. Behind him is Itachi, similarly dressed and armed, who’s fiddling with another door. Neither of them notice him.

“We’ll have to take the less subtle approach,” Itachi murmurs.

“That’ll trip the alarm,” Sasuke says, looking mildly disgruntled at the prospect.

“I’ll set up a circuit to delay it.”

“Fine,” Sasuke says, and goes back to attempting to control his slippery opponent. The Zetsu unhinges its (his? their?) mouth and tries to unsuccessfully take a chunk out of Sasuke’s face.

Naruto switches his gun for a mid-length fighting knife, takes a deep breath and steps out from behind his tank. His eyes meet Sasuke’s and he raises an eyebrow. Sasuke raises an eyebrow back in response and gives a slight nod.

In one integrated motion, Naruto flips his knife into a reverse grip and cleanly slices through the Zetsu’s hamstrings, hooking his arms under its armpits before it can fall. Sasuke simultaneously clamps a gloved hand over the thing's mouth. Together, they restrain the violently bucking and thrashing Zetsu and lower it to the ground. The deep gash on its thighs bleeds a black liquid with the distinct green sheen of the fluid it had been suspended in.

The whole thing takes barely a few seconds. Naruto restrains the Zetsu’s upper body and arms, precisely pinning its centre of gravity, while Sasuke braces himself over its lower body and legs.

Experimentally, Sasuke lifts his hand. The Zetsu opens its wide mouth to reveal sharp teeth - Christ, they're literal fangs - and lets out an ear-splitting, inhuman shriek. Sasuke swiftly clamps its mouth shut, flicks open a knife of his own and stabs it through the heart.

It takes around thirty seconds for the last of the Zetsu’s tremors to die out and as they stand up in perfect synchronization, Naruto is hit with a wave of nostalgia.

There’s a beat of silence.

“Sup,” Naruto says finally, throwing in a suave wink for good measure.

“Must you always meddle?” Sasuke says, like a shithead.

Naruto stares at him and his stupid face with its serious expression. Behind him, Itachi’s moved on to setting up charges around the doorframe. He’s reminded of another moment nearly twenty months ago, with Sasuke standing between him and Itachi, his dark eyes colder than the freezing white snow. His mouth forming the words, _I don’t want to fight you._

Naruto has a lot of things to say, like _are you genuinely crazy_ or _couldn’t you have chosen a better way to infiltrate,_ or even, _where’s the gratitude you owe me, you ungrateful ass._ But the longer he stares at Sasuke’s face, the less coherent he finds himself. The anger and incredulity he'd managed to keep at bay after Sai bubbles over again, and the next thing he knows is that he’s throwing a punch.

Sasuke actually has the audacity to widen his eyes imperceptibly — shocked, by his standards — and then they’re silently rolling on the floor like squabbling children, getting black blood and green tank fluid all over themselves.

“Fuck you,” Naruto hisses, hand around Sasuke’s throat. “Don’t tell me what I should do.”

“Why are you wearing my clothes,” Sasuke chokes out, completely missing the point.

“Who said they’re yours?”

Sasuke twists his hip and Naruto’s back hits the floor. He brings their faces close. His bruising weight on Naruto’s shoulders is a threat of potentially dislocated arms, and he jabs Naruto’s chest. “That’s our family crest there.”

Bewildered, Naruto looks down at the stylized table tennis bat embroidered on the pyjama. “What sort of dumb family crest looks like sports equipment?”

“It’s an _uchiwa,”_ Sasuke says, as if that makes it any less stupid.

“Well, fuck you, they’re comfortable,” Naruto says, looking him steadily in the eye. What he really means is, _I filched them when my abandonment issues started acting up and you know it._

Sasuke parts his mouth. Naruto can _hear_ his lips unstick. They're close, too close.

The last time they’d been like this, Naruto had ended up with Sasuke’s tongue against his. This time, though, he refuses to be distracted by his masculine wiles. He bashes his forehead against Sasuke’s. Sasuke curses and his weight slacks fractionally, and Naruto uses the leeway to roll his hips and push with his arms, flipping Sasuke off.

An iron grip from behind stops his elbow mid-punch.

“As touching as this reunion is,” Itachi says drily. “We’re on a tight schedule. Naruto, pardon me if I’m misreading the situation, but am I correct to assume that we can expect your cooperation?”

“Uh,” Naruto says, momentarily taken aback at the sheer strength behind the grip. “Sure, yeah. That’s why I’m here. To help.”

“Wonderful,” Itachi says, sending Sasuke a look _._ “Thank you.”

All the fight drains out of Sasuke and he mutters something under his breath, which sounds suspiciously like, _He started it._

“You shouldn’t have continued it,” Itachi says curtly. “Learn how to use your words.”

He releases Naruto’s elbow and hoists him up. Naruto doesn’t _need_ the help or _want_ the help but accepts the help nonetheless because he doesn’t want Sasuke’s boyfriend to think that he’s being petty. Sasuke is offered no such assistance and simply grumbles incomprehensibly as he picks himself off the floor.

Naruto has the sudden, uncomfortable urge to defend him, so he tells Itachi, “Um, I didn’t really mind. The fighting, that is. It’s a, er, it’s a thing. That we do. Did. Sort of.”

He doesn’t say that it would usually evolve into flirting before devolving into sex. He probably doesn’t have to, either, because Itachi looks him over, from head to toe and back up again. 

“Is that so,” Itachi says mildly. He looks considerably less sick than the last time they’d been face to face, and is actually quite decent-looking in a rehabilitating-heroin-addict sort of way. “Interesting.”

The device on the door beeps innocuously, breaking the weird tension between them. One by one, they step over the immobile, possibly dead Zetsu. As much as it is possible to…kill something that has clearly been mass-produced in a lab. Due to personal reasons, Naruto doesn’t want to think too much about the implications.

The beeping gets slightly more frantic and the charges Itachi had set up detonate with muted puffs.

“The battery will last us around forty minutes,” he explains to Naruto as the three of them carefully lower the heavy door to the ground. It’s pretty standard stuff: pulses fed into the control box to replicate the door’s locked state as long as the battery lasts. “That should give us enough time, as long as no one discovers the door. No one should, either. Sasuke and I will lead the way. Will you watch our backs?”

Maybe Naruto’s biased, but it sounds like a diplomatic way of asking him to stay out of the way. Whatever tenuous goodwill he had built towards Itachi instantly evaporates. At least _Sasuke_ respects people enough to be straightforward about what he wants instead of hiding behind politeness.

He pushes the sheer dislike caught in his throat down with great difficulty. He’s a professional. He’s here to make sure Sasuke gets out alive, not to start a brawl.

“I will,” Naruto says, equally polite and charming.

* * *

“So,” Itachi tells Sasuke quietly as they wait for a gap in the guard rotation, but loud enough that Naruto can hear. He slants a brief, obvious glance at Naruto. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Yes,” Sasuke says flatly, staring intently ahead. “Mind your own business.”

Naruto takes up the rear once the coast is clear and they hurry down a corridor which is not a corridor as much as it is a labyrinth of brick-walled tunnels with doors leading into rooms. The other two seem to know where they are going, slinking around corners and navigating forks without breaking pace. Guards are occasionally encountered and evaded, although one unfortunate chap ends up bound and gagged in a supply cabinet. The frequency of people they encounter lessens as they go deeper into the network, as does the lighting.

They reach a cavern of sorts, which splits into three paths. Sasuke and Itachi pause, so Naruto pauses behind them as well.

“You go ahead with Itachi,” Sasuke tells Naruto. “I’ll have to split.”

Naruto frowns. “What? No, I’m coming with you.”

“Unfortunately, Sasuke’s right,” Itachi cuts in. “You’ll be more useful with me than with him.”

Naruto _hates_ this. “Alright.”

“Thank you.” Itachi turns to Sasuke, an unidentifiable emotion in his face. “Don’t do anything stupid. Remember, we only need the evidence. Nothing more.”

“You know I can’t promise you that,” Sasuke returns. It sounds like an old argument.

Itachi takes a deep shuddering breath and leans his forehead against Sasuke’s. “We’re almost done. Focus on the goal, yeah?”

Sasuke closes his eyes and nods briefly into the contact. “The goal. Yeah.”

“We still need to restore the house, alright? We have plans. Don’t die on me.”

Naruto stares awkwardly at the floor, feeling like the third wheel that he is as the two men murmur softly to each other.

“Naruto,” Sasuke says, and Naruto snaps his head up. There’s a steely, determined set to his jaw. “I know I never said this the last few times,” he says, “but thank you. For everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Naruto says, with the distinct feeling that he’s missed something monumental.

“I do,” Sasuke says. He squeezes Naruto’s shoulder and smirks. “Don’t give Itachi too much trouble when I’m gone.”

Sasuke turns and disappears. Again.

* * *

Surprisingly, it’s Itachi who initiates conversation between them.

“You don’t like me very much,” he remarks, leading them down another deserted tunnel.

“Only subjectively,” Naruto assures him. It's the truth. “But I’m a professional." It is also the truth.

"Tell me something. Sasuke tells me you're extremely loyal to Leaf. Why would you go to such extents to help us?"

The answer is easy. "Sasuke's my friend."

"Hm."

"He's..." Naruto scratches the back of his head with the muzzle of his gun. "When he was here, he always kept to himself. You can call him independent and cold, but I just thought that it was kinda depressing? He doesn't have many people rooting for him. And I —" _genuinely love him_ "— just wanna help him. And, by extension, you."

When Itachi doesn't say anything for a while, Naruto speaks up, "So! What are we working with here?”

“If I tell you, you can’t plead plausible deniability should the need arise.”

“I’m already on Leaf’s shit list. Can’t get any worse, yeah?”

“Very well. I assume you’ve read my file?”

“Only the basics.”

“Parts of it are fabricated,” Itachi says, as if he’s talking about a minor inconvenience. “With my consent at the time, but in hindsight, that may have been a bad idea.”

Naruto doesn’t exactly falter but comes pretty close. “What do you mean?”

Itachi tells him about his cousin, his best friend and fellow member of ANBU, who had killed himself.

“It would have been beneficial for Leaf to spin his suicide as a murder and to pin it on me,” Itachi continues. “His codename was Shunshin, if you remember. So, I agreed. Imagine my surprise when Sasuke and I find evidence that not only is Shisui alive, but he has been stashed away here as a prisoner for the last fifteen years.”

This time, Naruto does falter, and has to jog to catch up with Itachi who continues striding forward. “But _why?”_

“An insecure master will muzzle even the most loyal of his dogs, Naruto,” Itachi says, and there it is, the hint of cold fury. “Surely you of all people should understand that.”

That brings up more questions than it answers, but it seems to be in line with the whole conspiracy angle Naruto’s been working with so far. He decides to dump his questions into the ever-growing category of things that aren’t in his best interest to think about at the moment.

* * *

Their destination is a narrow, rusted door in a dingy corridoor. When they get through the lock, the first thing that hits Naruto is the stench.

It smells of piss and shit and infection and despair and is somehow worse than the sewer. Beside him, Itachi freezes where he stands.

The bundle of rags in the corner of the tiny, isolated cell stirs and a man with a sunken, skeletal face lifts his head. Two mangled messes of thick burn tissue are the only things that exist in the sockets that had once held his eyes.

“Shimura,” the man rasps and tries for a grin that makes cracked lips and waxy skin stretch grotesquely over decaying teeth. “Been a while. I, ah, see you brought a guest too.”

Itachi takes one step forward. Two. He stops.

“You’re not Shimura,” the man says quietly. “Who are you?”

Itachi collects himself. “Forgotten me already, Shisui?” He says, stepping across the cell.

Shisui flinches and shrinks back further into his corner. “Itachi? No, no, that can’t be right. I thought— You— He said—“

“It’s me,” Itachi says, voice rough. “Sasuke’s here too.”

“Sasuke?” Shisui says, a little dazed, and swivels his mutilated face in Naruto’s general direction. “Baby Sasuke?”

“He’ll join us soon,” Itachi says, gently lifting Shisui up. Naruto goes to help him. “I’ll explain later. This is Naruto, a good friend of Sasuke’s. He’s going to help us get you out of here. Can you walk?”

“I’m fucked physically,” Shisui rasps, leaning weakly on Naruto as Itachi inspects his legs and feet. He’s horribly light for a man of his height. “Can barely even move to take a shit these days. Eau de toilette de Shisui,” he adds with a laugh as thin and pale as his skin.

Naruto kills people for a living. He’s got one hundred and six sanctioned kills on him, and he's learnt to not keep count of the unsanctioned ones. The ones that classify as _necessary_ _collateral,_ or the ones who succumb to their injuries or have their livelihoods and families destroyed due to Naruto’s meddling.

He mostly gets through the associated PTSD and moral ambiguity by disassociating via human company and dumb jokes. But despite his personal coping mechanisms, the sight of Shisui chuckling as he tries to cling to Naruto with brittle hands is one of the least funny things he has ever seen.

* * *

Getting Shisui out of his prison is easy. It’s after that that things start going a bit off the rails.

They loop back to meet up with Sasuke where they had separated. Itachi leads the way and covers them, while Naruto half-supports, half-carries Shisui, who has begun to tremble from the exertion.

The minutes tick by excruciatingly as they wait silently in the shadows, and Sasuke fails to turn up. The feed from his comm is nothing but a spluttering stream of static, and his tracker is non-functional.

Naruto opens his mouth, thinks about offering to go look, and closes his mouth without saying anything when he sees the carefully controlled non-look on Itachi's face.

A human scream pierces the silence from somewhere up ahead. A meaty, squelching sound later, the scream gurgles off.

Naruto and Itachi exchange looks of alarm (Naruto) and concern (Itachi). Naruto carefully passes Shisui to Itachi and inches forward to investigate.

He’s barely a hundred or so metres in when something white and naked and toothy leaps out at him from the dark. He reflexively empties a burst of three bullets into its thigh. The gunshots echo deafeningly through the narrow brick tunnel as the Zetsu tumbles to a stop near his feet, leaving a smear of greenish-black blood on the floor behind it.

A heavy shuffling sound fades in from one of the side tunnels a few metres away, throwing long shadows on the opposite wall. Naruto leans forward in careful anticipation, adrenaline spiking under his skin.

Something grabs his ankle.

Heart thudding in his chest, he shoots the Zetsu from earlier point-blank in the head just as it closes its fangs around his foot.

An eerie moan echoes through the tunnel, followed by a burst of unknown, faraway gunshots. A shrill, undulating alarm starts wailing.

“Um,” Naruto calls, breaking backwards into a run as the shadows resolve into those green-haired vampire-clone-things. “We have a situation.”

* * *

Naruto offers to slow the bitey, grabby things down so that Itachi and Shisui can find a way out. Itachi agrees to the plan without protest, which either makes him a jackass or a man extremely focused on his mission objectives. Naruto doesn't get the time to decide which because he soon finds himself staring down a gang of Zetsu.

There’s around twelve of the clones. They just look at him without attacking, and he has two pressing questions: One, how did the hell did they get free? Two, and the only one which matters, where the fuck was Sasuke?

“Hey,” Naruto says carefully when nothing lunges for his throat. “How’s it going?”

He slowly works out his phone from his pyjama pockets and in a creepy synchronized motion, the Zetsu tilt their heads sideways, curious. He unlocks the screen and starts taking a video. Killing the Zetsu would probably count as destruction of Leaf property (and add to his burgeoning list of misdemeanors), but with appropriate evidence, he could plead self defence here. Probably. If they gave him the chance.

One of the ones in the front is idly gnawing at a forearm like one would at a chicken drumstick. One of the poor guards, by the looks of it. Hopefully not the one they'd stashed in the supply cabinet. Naruto zooms into the blood that's dripping from the bite marks.

“So, you guys actually eat human meat, huh? That’s—” Nauseating. Horrifying. “—cool.”

He switches to camera mode and takes a picture. His phone goes off with a bright flash and he scowls at it, momentarily distracted. “Oh, come _on._ Who messed with my settings—”

The loud hissing from in front of him cuts him off, and he glances up to see the Zetsu lowering their paper-white hands from their faces. They bare their sharp fangs, looking angry now.

“Fuck,” Naruto says, taking a slow step back. He raises his hands, placating. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

With an earsplitting shriek, they lunge at him as one. Naruto braces his footing and fires.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments appreciated. :)


End file.
